


Gone Like Smoke

by InkHallucination



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Almost everyone jobs differes from cannon, Christope is a detective, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm trash is it obvious, Phichit Chulanont is a Little Shit, Phicit has a blog, Pretend everyone lives in the same place, This is totally how police works, Viktor is a real crime writer™, Viktor with a K, Yurio is still a skater, Yuuri affects everyone by not being there, Yuuri has some cool powers, about supernatural stuff, he catches criminals faster than he comes, i can't believe myself, long haired yuuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9062161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkHallucination/pseuds/InkHallucination
Summary: There was three things everyone knew about Yuuri Katsuki.One, at the age of fourteen he had broke the Junior's world record with one of the most beautiful performances to ever grace the ice.Two, he had vanished under the eyes of thousands of people right after the end of his free  skate, never to be seen again.Tree, today in the tenth anniversary of his disappearance, he was found in the same ice he was last seen into, bloody, shaken and with only two words to pronounce, Viktor Nikiforov.Viktor is conscious that he may be a little bit obsessed with the infamous Katsuki case, even trough that same obsession was the reason behind the success of his now best selling book Yuri on Ice, which was said to be the best investigation to the date about it. That’s why, when he’s called to become a consultant in the reopening of the case, he’s more than eager to participate. But why does the world seem to bend at Yuuri’s whim? And how is that he seems to know him when he’s been gone for a decade?





	1. Gone.

Yuuri was going to win. As he watched his step sequence, the way the blades flawlessly scraped along the ice, over and over, with practiced ease, not an inch out of place,  Celestino didn’t hope, nor did he expected, he knew, like he knew all the other people in the rink couldn’t take their eyes away from the ice. It was a matter of fact.  
The second half of his program was barely starting and he already had enough to leave with the gold.  
It was almost unbelievable to think he was anxious at the beginning of the season. But then again, Yuuri had tendence to get anxious at almost anything, last year when the nerves had gotten to him he had placed last in the finals. For a junior skater just making his debut that had been more than enough, even if Yuuri was keen in thinking it wasn’t. Now, Celestino was kind of glad, not of his emotional breakdown mind you, but to where that had lead him, to train harder than any skater he had taken under his wing, by now he had lost count of the times he had found him, still training in the middle of night, music blasting on his phone as he polished his routine over and over again.  
And here he was now, moving with the music like he had known it from birth. To be honest he had been a little bit worried the storm outside would have maked difficult for the music to be heard properly, or that it would have make difficult for Yuuri to follow the tune but so far he had managed to  even surpass the best of his expectatives. He was proud.  
It was time for his last jump. Out of every element it was no secret jumps were not his strong point, and Celestino had had to made sure he didn’t break and ankle out of the countless hours he had spent pacticing them on his own, he had gone to the extent to even practice the quads, even if every intent ended in him  hitting the ice over and over again. It was alright through, he still had time before he had think to move to the seniors competition and master them. For now, he was going for a triple flip, if he landed it he would have no penalties to affect his score. The whole rutine depended on that..  
He jumped.  
In the years to come, Celestino would say that the moment he saw the fourth rotation he had been sure he was suffering from delusions, for he was sure that such a jump was years ahead of his student.  
Even when he landed, a bright smile in his face like he had never seen before as he took his last position, Celestino had yet to believe what his eyes had seen, the rink was silent, and then as if they they too couldn’t believe what their own eyes told them, one by one until it had become a deafening roar, the cheers, the public had become crazy, and just along with them, he too couldn’t help but scream in happiness at his own student’s victory.  
That’s when the lights went out. One second, the two, then light came back again. And Yuuri was nowhere to be seen.  
The public cried out again.  
He stepped into the ice, feet slipping behind him a his eyes wandered all over the place but no, for more than he tried to look the ice was bare, he couldn’t possible have gone out of it just two seconds.  
He almost fell when security called him over.  
“This may just be a prank or something, we won’t let anyone go till we found him, it shouldn’t take long” They informed him, but at this point he could only assent numbly. He was slightly aware of Yuuri’s sister crying as she tried to approach him, her mother on the phone hysterical as she asked for answers.  
He  could feel the beginning of nausea came over him when he started to think about the possibilities and he had to stop himself himself if he didn’t want to get sick. Surely it was just a mistake, maybe another skater had decided to pull a prank on them and they would appear in minute, then they would all laugh and forget. Yes, Yuuri will surely appear shortly, he just had to wait a little bit, sit on the kiss and cry,and wait for the scores for him.  
It had surpassed the previous world record by almost ten points, he had won the gold medal. Celestino could only hope they found him soon so he could see too.


	2. Like the fire itself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author had too much sugar for lunch, and phones are highly regarded even in the absense of Phichit. Also the name of the rink came from my the fact that the junior GPF was held in sweeden, and...I couldn't find the ring it was held in, but that was the first rink to came in google, they're not actually in sweeden; but that will do for now. Let's begin.

Yuuko didn’t need the job. The Ice Castle did just fine, and after word  got out that it was the rink Yuuri Katsuki had skated in the beginning of his career, the amount of people visiting had been more than enough  to maintain her and her family. So, the reason she got up at five in the morning and taken the train for half an hour all the way to the Kirseberg ice rink, wasn’t because she needed the money. She needed it to remember.

She had taken the job on a whim. Or at least it had been like that at first. The last place her friend had been needed a new caretaker. Maybe she had done it to feel a little bit closer to him. Maybe she had expected to find something, answers. And the truth is that she had gone to the interview knowing quite well the job was hers right after she entered the room. For a place which fame consisted in the life one skater, it was to be expected they knew said life.

And Yuuko knew people will recognize her, specially in there. It wasn’t hard when year after year her face appeared on everyone screens,  the heartbroken friend always did as much of an impact as the now broken family. That documental did nothing but showing their pure unadulterated grief to the world. To her, it was a reminder, so she could never try and think she could live like nothing had ever happened.

She took the decision knowing quite well it was gonna hurt later. It hadn’t been easy at first, she walked the corridors and looked to the ice always thinking about him, she saw Yuuri everywhere, sliding over the ice, waiting for his turn to skate, jumping an impossible jump. She had soon learned that doing that served for nothing more than to haunt her, and at some point she had decided to stop thinking about him as the figure, the impossible skater, and the one who wouldn’t come back. He was Yuuri, a skater and friend, and Yuuko was more than happy to remember him as that.

At this point it had kind of become an entertaining job, actually. A quiet one. Most of the time it was only skaters who came in there, the ones who thought it was some kind of good luck charm to practice in the same ice as Yuuri Katsuki and the ones who didn’t care and just wanted to train in peace. Most of the people through came around the anniversary of his vanishing. Now, that’s when things get crazy. Most of them messed around took some photos and then left knowing they could tell their friends they had visited the infamous place of the disappearance. But she could remember the couple of times she had had to stay late, when the rink approved of those paranormal investigation shows, and they wanted to make sure they didn’t decide to do anything stupid like stealing their door or running over themselves with the zamboni. And that was when they even bothered to ask. One morning she had come to find some thai looking kid who apparently trapped himself in the  process of documenting some calling the dead from grave thing. And things had only got worse after the release of Viktor Nikiforov’s book. She had to constantly look around so that people didn’t get into places the shouldn’t while trying to find the supposed trap door he had been kidnapped through. She could swore every conspiracy theory was wilder  than the last one. She was starting to get tired of it. Don’t get her wrong, she appreciated the effort in finding the truth behind her friend's disappearance, she had even talked with Viktor himself, and he didn’t seem like one of those fame seeking vipers, he had come across like someone who honestly wanted to help, but, in her opinion, he needed to take a break,  the man looked like he lived and breathe Yuuri, to this point it was almost like he knew him better than his own family. And his book was just everywhere, she swore there was a pile of them just in their lost and found. She could only hope he didn’t decide to publish part two anytime soon, she had enough with the amount of people at this point.

And today was anniversary number ten of it. She had had to woke up an hour earlier if she didn’t wanted to struggle with the people at the door to enter.

Her hands were shaking in cold as she struggled with the key in her gloved fingers, entering and closing again. She had two hours to get everything ready for today.

Taking a trashbag, she started her way across the seats. For people so dedicated to the story they could do with keeping the place a little bit cleaner, you know, keeping it sacred or something like that.

Dammit, there was someone in the ice.  She really was hoping for a normal day.

“Hey! You, on the ice, get out of here, you can come  back at normal hours” She  called from where she stood. After a couple of experiences she had soon learned people were more eager to leave silently when they thought you hadn’t seen their faces. The person didn’t move.

She sighed as she started to reluctantly move towards them.

“Listen, I don’t care what are you doing here or how you got in, just leave already or I’m gonna be forced to call the police”

The person still refused to make a move.  Well, she tried. She had started  to dial the police number when she noticed the blood. This was new. She hurried to put on the nearest skates she found, not even caring if hey were her size or not. She put the 911 on the line as she started to skate towards them.

Could it be possible some twisted fan had decided to do some sick tribute? She certainly didn’t want  to think about it. Why someone decided to do something like that was out of her comprehension, and she prefered to leave it like that.

“Yes, I’m at the the Kirseberg Ice Rink, there is someone in the ice, I think they’re injured” She told the operator.

“Are they conscious? Are they breathing?”

She sure hoped they were.

“I’m going to check” She replied instead. “Hey, are you okay?Can you tell me what happened?” She asked to the person as she made her way across the ice. It was getting worse the closer she was. It was already distinguishable the fact they were naked, and the dry blood  that seemed to be staining the ice was everywhere, it seemed to have dried in patches all over their long black hair. She was getting sick of her stomach and they had yet to respond a word.

“They’re not respon...”

Her phone clattered in the ice as soon as she saw his face.

The features had changed a bit, he was taller, the hair a lot longer, but the eyes, she could never forgot those brown eyes. Yuuri was looking back at her.

Her whole body was shaking as she reached for the phone, and she fell not a moment later, she could barely register the cold and the pain, the phone slipped out of her hands a couple of times before she could grasp it firmly.

“Yes. operator? You better tell the police to come over.”

“Are they not breathing?”

“He _is_ breathing”

It almost sounded like a lie at this point.

 

 

It didn’t get easier. People told her it did, ten years ago, that she would be able to get over it, stages of grief or something like that. It didn’t. The only thing to become easier was not to cry. She hadn’t shed a tear in years.

It would always sting whenever she saw his  face. She would try to forget, she would try to think she had forgotten. But she hadn’t and every time her little brother looked at her from the pictures, his face beaming with that smile she had loved once, it would be a reminder that he no longer was here to smile like that.

Mari knew it wasn’t healthy to blame herself. You couldn't have changed it, they told her. But the truth is that she had been there, and she hadn’t been able to do anything. She couldn’t find her brother, and he had never been able to return home. It was something she had to live with day by day.

Decembers were the worst. She would see him everywhere, in the kids who decided to take skating in the Ice Castle, in the snow, in the way she would find herself waiting for him to return from the ice rink. It was like dying slowly. Her parents weren’t much better.

They hadn’t been there. And she knew that probably stung worse than having been there  and not doing anything. It wasn’t noticeable most of the time, they smiled and greeted their guests, but she saw it nevertheless, in the way they  will slow down whenever they passed a picture of him, how their smiles would become just a little bit strained; the way they would look at the door of his room longer than necessary. How they ever entered it.

And the documental. She hated that damn documental. She had seen it enough times to know every line by heart. It was almost  like a routine now. Every year she would try to distract them, just long enough so they could pass that week without remembering it, so when they would it wouldn't hurt as much. Just another year. And every year in the night before, a guest would always call for the moment it would air. They would I sit in silence, she would pray this to be a year the guests were nice enough to not ask them anything. Sometimes it would work. The first fifteen minutes were fine, she would watch a recap of her brother’s life, his passion about skating. Then, they would put the performance. And for a couple of minutes it would okay, she would get to see her brother do what he liked best, she could pretend she was watching him perform on tv, and she would smile when everyone cheered at the last jump. That’s my brother, she would think. She would let herself indulge in his smile. She liked to remember him like that, happy.

Then, the lights would go out. A second. Then two. And then he was no more.

Her mother would  never make it pass that moment. She would excuse herself to her room, and her father would go shortly after. She would stay. She would watch her own family, death inside as they answered the questions of the interviewer, their friends, the detective who had been in charge at that time. They would recount the lack of any evidence. The supposed suspects. And they would always end with the same line.

“ **_....the case was declared cold. Still, questions remain, the people will always wonder the motive beind the crime, and there will always be the ones to speculate about the truth. Whether it be the supernatural, or the angry response of the jealous competition. But as long as we keep it alive, Yuuri Katsuki will always live in our hearts, a star, who fell way too fast.”_ **

What a bunch of sappy crap.

She could just hope they didn’t randomly decide to make a sequel of sorts. It was already bad there was a movie coming in. That was a whole other buch things she better let untouched.

In the meanwhile, she would take care their parents didn’t get too caught in their grief today. She already had gotten early to make breakfast, and she could hear her parents cleaning the inn in the outside.

The phone ringed.

“I’ll answer it”  she called as she took it from the counter. “Yutpia Inn, what can we do for you?”

“I’m calling from the police department, this is about Yuuri Katsuki”

Oh, she  supposed she was bound receive this call sooner or later. It was something that she had come to understand. Still, it didn’t surprised her when she had to hold herself to the counter, her knees felt weak all of the sudden.

“Have you...have you found the body?” There was a slight tremble in her voice.

“Body? No, miss, we found him”

That couldn’t be right.

“What do you mean you found him?”

“He’s alive miss, they found him this morning at the Kirseberg Ice Rink, we still need to run a dna test but so far we are pretty sure it’s him”

She had to stare at the phone, a minute, then two.

“Miss?”

“I-I-I’ll be there soon” She hanged before they even had time to respond her.

She let herself fall to the ground. Her sight had got blurry.

Oh well, she thought, it seems the inn is got to be closed today.

She needed to tell her parents.

 

 

No, that wasn’t gonna work.  Rewind.

Alright, time: 1:25:56. Let’s check again. Celestino Cialdini, in the stands, cheering. Mari Katsuki, front seats, also cheering.  Little Jean Jacques Leroy, the kiss and cry, he looks awestruck. The Leroys, also the kiss and cry, they seem irritated. Yuuri Katsuki, in the center of the ice, still sustaining his last position. Play. Blackout. Stop. Play. Stop. Play. Light. Stop. Time: 1: 25: 59. Celestino Cialdini, same. Mari Katsuki, same. J.J, same. The Leroys, same. Yuuri Katsuki, gone.

Dammit. Maybe they asked someone to do  it?. Play again.

Celestino walks into the ice, Mari makes her way to him, the Leroys stay in place till they are removed from the kiss and cry. Celestino sits instead. The scores come out. The Leroys walk over to the judges, they call a cheated jump. Police arrives.  End of the tape.

Not a thing he hadn't noticed before.

It was helpless.

For all that critics and journalists said he was a prodigy investigator, Victor felt nothing but useless. Say whatever you like about his technique, in the end he wasn’t able to find the culprit. No real evidence. No culprit. No body. The only good thing he could do was speculate.

He felt hollow.

Yakov said he cared too much, that he should probably take a break, or at least focus on different case, write a book on something different. Mind you, Viktor didn’t want to focus on a different case. He had committed on this one too long ago to give up now.  He didn’t write to  gain money or fame, hell, the only way he had submitted his draft was out of a drunken bet. He couldn’t even remember he had done it till Yakov called him three months later to tell him it was gonna be published.

Everything had skyrocketed from there. A journalist had said it was a miracle for him to had achieved so much on his first work. If you asked Viktor, the only miracle was the fact he had managed to condense all of his work into eight hundred pages. Now, that was impressive.

It was all useless trough. Yes, he now had more funds for his investigation, and the 70 inches flat tv surely was better to spot details than his old analog one. But it was all and the same. Yuuri Katsuki had yet to receive justice. It made him sick to think he got everything and couldn’t give anything in return. Makkachin climbed in his lap, as if sensing his distress. At least something good in his world.

His  phone beeped.

“Chris now is not the time”

“I almost feel bad about interrupting you, but believe me, you want to hear what I’m about to say”

“I think I’m about to find something, can this wait?

“Still working? You need to take a break, I’m telling you”

“I’m hanging up”

“No! Listen!”

“You got a minute Chris”

“We found him”

“What do you mean you found him?”

“Well we didn’t exactly found him, more like he showed up but…”

“Who are talking about?”

“Who else Viktor? Yuuri Katsuki. Your little boy wonder. Through, let me tell you he’s not so little anymore...”

“Chris if this is a joke I swear I’m blocking you on twitter”

“It’s not a joke. Listen, I just got the news a minute ago, they found him two hours ago in Kirseberg, some girl he knew worked in there, she is shook, I’m gonna ask you as a consultant, paperwork will be ready in  a week or so, faster if I can have it. That being aside I need you here, fast, they're gonna call family soon and you better arrive before they do, there is something you need to hear”

Viktor refrained from telling him he was already outside of his flat.

“I’ll be on me way but you could tell me what it is you’re so shaken about, is he hurt? Did he said something about a possible subject? Is it the Leroys?”

“Well, he did say something about a possible subject but it’s not exactly the Leroys”

If he hadn’t been focused on walking down the steps without falling he would have notice the bite in his voice.

“I’ll meet you in twenty”

He hanged.

Next step, find a taxi.

The police station had gone crazy. Paperwork seemed to fly around, files that hadn’t seen the light in years being passed all over the place. Viktor recognized Yuuko Nishigori with a blanket over her shoulders, a cup of coffee that had long lost any warmth in her hands, untouched.

In the middle of that, Christophe looked like he had been cut short in the middle of beauty sleep. He probably had.

“Move, before someone finds that you’re here. He’s at the back in the interrogation room, I haven’t let anyone call the paramedics.”

“What? Do you have any idea what he could have gone through? he could be hurt, or dehydrated, he needs to see a doctor!”

Green eyes glared at him.

“You won’t say that in a minute”

He entered.

The first thing Viktor noticed was the smell of blood. The second, was the fact Yuuri was naked. The third, was the hair.

He wasn’t seeing the little boy skater. What presented in front of his eyes was something different. A different being, formed somewhere else, shaped into something out of their comprehension. Something feral. He felt an urge to backout, like his sole existence screamed danger. And he felt an urge to approach, to touch. Like his sole presence screamed desire _._

It was almost like seeing a ghost. And it was almost like seeing a siren.

Brown eyes met blue, and he was smitten.  Viktor had never felt more drawn to Yuuri Katsuki then he did at that moment. It almost made him afraid to feel so strongly.

“Oh, there you are Viktor, I was starting to think you didn’t want to come”

He almost missed it, too lost in the sound of his voice and that smile, oh that smile, but the spell broke the moment he did, and he almost felt like he had managed to breathe before drowning.

Ah. That explains a lot.

So, he had indeed pointed out a possible suspect. It was him. He was the possible suspect.

He heard the sound of the door closing in.

“Care to explain? Viktor”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it. Tell me what you think. You can also contact me in Tumblr if you want to scream about skaters or have a question regarding the fic, I'm under the same name. No, really, do it, I need Friends. Also Yuuko 10/10 logic regarding hurt people was inspired by the time I fainted at school, someone filmed it, and a friend apparently asked me if I was okay right after I plumeted to the groud. She wants to be a doctor so, pray for her.


	3. Under the ice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Viktor is shook, Mari is shook, Phichit has secrets, Yurio's still the same and JJ deserved better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My house is way too full of sweets for me to function. For the sake of plot JJ's been aged to be a year older than Yuuri. Also, just for the record a cheated jump is a jump in wich the rotations start or end in ice, they are heavily penalized, some times even more than falls. Just wanted to clarify, lets beguin.

He dragged Chris all the way back to the empty corridor.

“You can’t possible think I did it”

But Viktor knew how this looked.

“All I know is this, Yuuri Katsuki has done nothing more than repeat your name since he came here, and  you already have a history of being more than obsessed with him”

“It happened ten years ago! I was barely seventeen at the time!”

“More than enough! Look, Viktor, I know you, you’re too much of an airhead to have planed all of this, let alone sustain it for a decade, but people will not see it like that, it’s bad enough that I have to make sure neither the girl or the police officer who attended the scene say anything about it, but if I call the paramedics, those people fill reports, you know? And they won’t think the same I do, they will see you and think: how could we be so blind! Of course he did it! He’s way too obsessed not to be the culprit. They’ll throw you in jail and no fancy lawyer will get you out of there in this century.”

“So what? We hide him? It no use Chris, the media probably knows already”

“No, I call the hospital, in the meanwhile you go in there and see what does he want from you, do your job, find me a valid reason for him to ask about you, or at least some evidence that doesn’t point at you, and do it quick, the family shouldn’t take much longer to arrive”

He left him in the corridor.

It felt surreal. Out of all the ways he had thought this would happen, this one had never been in his plans. He had thought about it of course, how could he not, in his fantasies however, things were a bit different. Yuuri will appear out of nowhere of course, that part remained untouched, and he would find out, be surprised, like the rest of the world when the media exposed it. He would want to work in the case, but it will be of no use for someone who wasn’t even part of the police. But they would still find their way to each other. In more recent fantasies, Yuuri will find him through his book, he’ll approach him, and somehow they’ll find a kindred spirit in the other.  They would both work in the case, together, and eventually they would reunite enough evidence to catch the culprit, most probably the Leroys or some other competitor. He would find peace and Yuuri and him would remain friends.

Yes, Viktor  was aware of the fact that he might have gotten that plot out of some overly optimistic five dollar book. But he would always prefer that one over the ones when they found a body instead. Somehow thinking about a dead Yuuri always served for nothing more than to make him feel sick.

It was obvious to say, things hadn’t gone as planned

He was walking into this completely unprepared. But, he finally had a new chance to do things right, he needed to use it now, else he didn’t know when it would be possible for him to speak to Yuuri  again. He had never been one to let opportunities go.

He needed to hurry.

When he walked in again, he had barely moved a bit from where he left him. His eyes seemed to burn in his skin, and Viktor still couldn’t point what exactly it was in his presence that made him feel like that. He cleared his throat.

“Uh...hi”

Great Viktor, not even Sherlock could top that. Even Yuuri seemed confused by him.

“You don’t seem to be at ease” He told him, voice calm, Viktor wondered how was it possible to be so calm in this situation.

“I can’t decide what ask first” he replied, the other one laughed

“Well, you’ve never been one to think before speaking, Viktor”

There it was again.

“How do you know me?”

Yuuri looked amused at the question.

“The same way you know me” he told him, like he had already expected him to know the answer.

“You are not  answering the question”

“Am I?”

This wasn’t working.

“Are you hurt?”

“Do I look like I’m hurt?”

“You are covered in blood”

For a moment, Yuuri seemed to pause, looking down at himself and frowned like he had just noticed it, like it surprised him.

“I am, right?”

“Can you tell me whose blood is it?”

He paralyzed. And now, Viktor thought Yuuri almost looked like he had turned back time, he wasn’t looking at the being who came back, but the kid with anxiety issues who had disappeared out of rink ten years ago. It wasn’t actually fear in his face, more like...guiltiness. When their eyes meet again, he almost looked like he was going to cry, eyes starting to weep with an appalled expression in his face.

“Yours.” He responded. “It’s your blood Viktor”

What…

The door opened and Christophe's stern eyes locked on him.

“Time’s up. Get out before someone sees you”

He felt a hand grasping his as he turned to the door. Yuuri clung to him like he was going to vanish again the moment he let go.

“I’ll be back” He stammered in response, still a bit shaken after his words. “It won’t take long just, don’t tell anyone what you told me, alright?”

Yuuri nodded, hand shakingly opening just enough to slip away as he was draged out of the place by Chris, he could hear the sound of the paramedics behind him.

“Will you tell me what was that about?” Christophe inquired as soon as they were out of the building.

“I’ll tell you” He assured him. “But first, I need a drink”

He was going to need the whole bottle.

 

 

One of the things he prided himself for was the fact that, despite documenting almost all of his life in instagram and twitter, no one would never know a thing of his life if he didn’t want them to. Phichit was just awesome like that. And a perfect example was Yuuri.

If you scrolled through his twitter or his blog for a couple of hours you would get to one simple conclusion. Phichit Chulanont was yet another fan of the infamous Yuuri Katsuki disappearance. That was clear to anyone. He would tweet about it every anniversary like the loyal fan he was, and occasionally do it when new information came out, any trivia around, episodes of Destination Truth, Viktor Nikiforov’s book, aesthetics, even the new movie. One time he had actually filmed a video in the place of the events, armed with nothing but his cellphone, a selfie stick, salt, and a ouija board. He had hit himself with the stick, sprinkled salt in his eyes, locked himself, and he knew there were a couple of vines of him screaming and setting the ouija board on fire after  he inadvertently put it under a vent and thought it had moved, he hadn’t even brought matches, but he was nothing but resourceful.

What his fans didn’t know was that he wasn’t _yet another fan,_ oh no, he was THE FAN, give him some writing skills and he could give Viktor Nikiforov a run for his money. Ask Guang Hong, or even Leo, and they would tell you. He really hoped they would when the movie comes out and they do the interviews, he could use the publicity. And while he was at it, he really needed to end his analysis of the trailer, not that he was eager to criticise his friends, he was sure the movie was gonna be good, but if he was brutally honest, Guang’s character was more oc for the sake of tears than anything, he’ll give the directors some credits for casting Leo as JJ, showing the world he can actually portray someone so different from himself will do wonders to his career, but Seung-gil...he didn’t want to doubt on his acting skills, if he could show some emotions and nail Yuuri’s overly emotional character then it would be great, but his main question remained in how hell did they think they can pass someone who already was 20 for a 14 year old, Guang would have nailed that one part better, but of course, hollywood would never step out of the “You gotta be sexy-hot if you wanna be a star” rule, and Guang was more of a cute type...dammit he sidetracked again.

The point is, he knew how hide a secret. And the one secret not even his friends knew, was the reason he had devoted the last decade in something most people already gave up. Because he had known Yuuri, he had been there that night.

Phichit remembered, and he did it clearly.He had once been a skater too. Just a little kid from Thailand who had been taken under Celestino’s training. In those few months Yuuri had been the best friend he could have been asked for. And when he vanished, Phichit had been there. And he had seen something, he had filmed it.

The one video Phichit would never upload to his blog.

Yuuri had not been kidnapped. What had happened was something different, something mere words were not able to explain. And because of that, Phichit knew the probabilities of his friend coming back were small. That’s why he gave up skating. To step in the ice would have felt like stealing from Yuuri, and he deserved to at least keep that himself. Besides, even if he didn’t think that way, he was afraid of the thing that lurked underneath it.

He had devoted himself to other things. Finding out a way to bring Yuuri back was the main one. He wasn’t afraid to dig in places better left untouched, not if it could bring him back.

So, taking all of this into consideration, you can guess that, when #YuuriLives appeared in all over the place in twitter out of nowhere, Phichit had been #Fucked.

He had honestly thought it had been yet another hoax at first. He knew quite well those appeared every once in awhile. But when a photograph of a long haired clearly bloody figure being covered by a blanket and escorted inside a police station got leaked by some fame seeking police officer, well, Phichit knew it was truth.  Yuuri lived.

He had never packed faster in his whole life. In less than an hour he already had his laptop, video camera, selfie stick, cellphone, some clothes and his passport ready.

He needed to catch a flight.

 

 

Mari still thought she was dreaming. Even as Minako drove and kicked the brakes hard enough to almost crash the car countless of times, she still felt like she was dreaming, for something like this couldn’t be happening. Her mother and father could barely contain their tears, and Minako, it had been ten years since she had seen her this alive.

It was surreal.

“Were here”

She hadn’t even registered the car had come to a stop. Somehow, in the amount of time it had take them to get there it looked like all the news channels had got wind of the notice. A rational part of her wondered how would it be possible for her to even get through the door with all that people.

The other one, the one who had mourned her brother longer than anyone should ever have to had only one thing to say. Move.

She didn’t care what they would say about her, charge her for aggression if they want, she didn’t give a damn as she pushed each and every reporter out of her way, she would throw the microphones away if they even dared to stick them on her face.

“Excuse me miss you can’t go in” Informed her some officer standing in the doorway trying to keep everyone at bay.

“It’s my brother you have in there, move or I’ll make you do it!”

They let her in.

In a chair, eyes looking at nowhere she recognized Yuuko from the Ice Castle. Of course, they told her someone who knew him had found him.

“What happened?!” She asked her making her way to her. She was pale as a sheet of paper. She feared the reason behind that. The mug in her hands, the  red stains that resembled fingers around it, and she came to the dreadingly realization that there was blood in her hands. It was like a twisted replaying of the fear he had experienced ten years ago.

“Yuuko...is my brother alright”

Brown eyes turned to look at almost too slowly.

“He was covered in it. Blood. They won’t tell me anything”

See could feel the bile rising up in her stomach.

“Are you the relatives of Katsuki Yuuri?” Asked a deep voice behind her; she turned to find a handsome blonde man in his mid twenties, and se would have stared at him awhile longer if she hadn’t been in this situation.

“Is he alright? Can we see him? Please” Begged her mother, who already looked like she was about to pass out.

“The paramedics are seeing him now, you should be able to see him as soon as they finish, it’s probable they gonna ask for doctor to see him in the hospital but I’m sure it’s just procedure. I’m Christophe Giacometti, by the way, lead investigator of the case.”

Her voice was trembling when she found herself able to use it again.

“Why does she say he was covered in blood? Is he injured?”

“He didn’t seem to sustain any major injury to me, but we’ll know for sure when the paramedics end their job”

As if they had been called, a group of people carrying medical supplies entered the  room from a door in back. She couldn’t decipher the look in their faces.

“And well?” Asked the detective to a woman who seemed to be the lead of the group.

“He had a couple of scratches and bruises, but it doesn’t seem like the blood belongs to him, and if you ask me, whoever it belongs to is either dead or about to. Nothing critical trough, still, I would like it if he could stay at the hospital for today, run a couple of tests, he should be able to go home by tomorrow.” She turned to looked at her. “You’re his family right? Well, I already know that for one thing that boy is gonna need some serious help, but you’re lucky. Not everyone get’s a second chance”

She already knew that. It was for that reason she could still not believe it.

“I’ll prepare the ambulance and see someone takes care of the people at the entrance, let them see him in the meanwhile” Said the woman as she took to the entrance.

She followed detective Giacometti to the back of the station, a strange feeling in the depth of her stomach. She was almost afraid to look inside the room when he opened the door because, what if it wasn’t truth? What if it wasn’t him? What if he didn’t recognize her? It all felt like a dream and she didn’t want to wake up. Then, her mother rushed in, and when she screamed his name it had been like the bubble exploded, and all she needed to know was that he was there, he was there and she didn’t need anything else more than to see him.

Her mother was already hugging him, and there was something oddly familiar in the way he tensed, arms hung at the sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. She almost laughed. ‘Cause it was him, it was Yuuri, Yuuri who never liked to hug anyone, who recoiled from human touch, and it was so familiar, even after all this time, so much that she couldn’t help but throw herself at him. ‘Cause it was way too perfect and she needed to know he was real.

Minako was crying in the doorway. Her father joining the hug with a mixture of laughing  and crying.

And she knew it was real, cause no dream of her could ever be this good.

 

 

JJ’s life in the last decade could be resumed as an endless list of should have beens. He should have listened to himself. He should have moved to seniors as soon as he turned fifteen. He should have practiced more. He should have helped find Yuuri Katsuki. He should have stopped his parents from calling a cheated jump. He should have stopped skating. He should have pursued his dreams of joining a band when he could. He should have changed his name and started a new life. He should have never started skating in the first place. He should have won the gold that night. He should have killed Yuuri Katsuki.

And the thing is, he never did any of those. At one point, his life had turned for the worst, and the fact that he had been helpless to do anything about that hurt a lot more than if he had been guilty of anything in the first place. JJ had a lot of theories on when that one point could have been, but if he had to pick, he would said it had been at the 2003 Junior GPF. Fourteen of December. The day Yuuri Katsuki disappeared.

And the truth was, he never saw it coming. The first day of the competition, he had been surpassed by Yuuri, but it hadn’t bothered him. He was happy. Because there had been someone better than him, and that was a lot better than winning just because the rest of the skaters weren’t good enough. He had someone to fight with for the gold medal. And when the day of the free program came he skated with that in mind, did his best. He had broke his own record, he was in first place. And that had been enough for him.

Then, it was Yuuri’s turn. And he broke. He felt helpless because, how could he say that what he had done all this time was skating when something as beautiful as that existed. And he felt blessed, because he had been allowed to watch it, and he knew he could do it, he knew one day he would be able to reach that level of beauty. Then the light had vanished, and Yuuri had vanished too.

If he had known what he knew now, he would have done something else. Help. Stop his parents. They had the best intentions, he knew that. And he understood why they had thought impossible for fourteen year old to do a quad flip, when he, a year his senior, had just begun to land his first salchows. But how could they even think about doing something as serious as calling a cheated jump when he had just gone missing?

Everything went downhill from there. Evidence, of course, was inexistent, but people always needed someone to point at, and they never stood a chance. Rumor had it his parents knew he was gonna lose, that they knew Katsuki could do the quad flip, that the three of them paid someone to do it, even if he had been barely fifteen at the time. And, if he had stopped skating at that point, maybe things would have turned different. Maybe the world would have been satisfied. But he hadn’t. The only reason he had been able to continue for another season had been because he qualified, got silver last year. It didn’t even matter, as much as he jumped and gave his everything in every performance, no judge ever gave him a score above fifty after that. They called him a sore loser, a cheater, a killer. Even at school. He had been forced by his parents to study high school at home when he started appearing with bruised ribs every week.

Life wasn’t kind to those who were blacklisted as murders. And really, he was happy his girlfriend even accepted to marry him, she was of the few who believed firmly in his innocence and that of his family.

It got easier trough. This days most people had forgotten about it. Most people didn’t recognize him, and he was fine with that. Only in december's, when the interest spiked, did he caught the dirty looks people sended at him. He was kind of used to them at this point.

He did his best to live a happy life at home with his fiancee and his parents in the house next door, evading thoughts of Yuuri Katsuki as much as he could. Resentment was a scary thing, and he shouldn’t feel like that for someone who never tried to ruin his life.

He liked to think he had moved on.

He hadn’t move on. That much was clear when he found out.

It was all over the news. Yuuri Katsuki lives. It had hit him like a truck. A sudden urge to scream had overcome him. See! It wasn’t him! He told them! They never believe him, but he told them!

And with that thought, came another one. People were cruel. If Yuuri didn’t gave them a culprit, now they were gonna need one. And him and his parents were the perfect ones.

He was not letting the list of should have beens get any longer.

There was one thing he had to do. He needed help, someone who would believe in him , who could see the truth.

Viktor Nikiforov was the first one who came to his. He had wrote a book about it. He had never been able to get himself a copy, mind you, the clerk at the bookstore refused to acknowledge his existence every time he tried to bought it, but surely someone like him could see the truth. He needed to find him.

He would save himself. He was not letting his life in someone else's hand anymore, and he knew just what he needed to do.

He needed to find Viktor Nikiforov.

 

 

Yuuri Plisetsky was not one to dance around a subject, alright? So, he was not gonna dwell on some deep poetic thoughts about Yuuri Katsuki, nor was he gonna dwell on the beauty of his performance or the way he had left a hole in his life the size of russia. Because he hadn’t.

He went straight to the point, said point being, he wanted to break Yuuri Katsuki’s world record. Simple as that. And people were gonna call him insensible, they’ll say things like he should be more respectful to other people legacies and stuff. But Yuri, could care less about that people, because the truth was this, cherish that record as much as they like,sacred legacy of whatever, it was going to be broke one day. The world of sports was like that, nothing to do about it.  And if someone had to do it they could at least be happy it was gonna be him, who had devoted enough of his life to say he deserved it.

And, in an ideal world, he would have done it last year. Fast forward to reality, he hadn’t. He had come close, won the medal, but he still didn’t make it.

He was old enough to enter seniors now, and in all honesty, it wasn’t like he feared the competition. He knew he was good, hell, he even knew it wouldn’t be hard for him to make it to the finals. But if he did it now, he knew he would regret it for the rest of his life.

It was frustrating. Cause the reason he wasn’t able to break that record was not because of some technical difficulty, he was still inconsistent with his quad flip but that wasn’t it. What was keeping him from breaking the record was his lack of artistry. And that was the part he hated the most. Technical was easy, whatever he wasn’t able to do could easily be fixed with practice. Artistry was not. Someone had told him once that it came from the heart. Cryptic asshole.

He was fifteen, and he had yet to decipher that line.

Which lead to this day. Cause see, when he took a break from practice today and checked his phone, he had found his answer, sorta. It started like this, when Beka, who was practically dead most of the time on twitter, suddenly tagged him on some picture with the hashtag YuuriLives, his first thought wasn’t: Oh, Yuuri Katsuki lives. No. His first thought was: Which one of you fuckers told everyone I’m dead.

And then, when he clicked the picture, he didn’t thought that same thing. He thought: Alright, how do I pay a plane ticket.

He still didn’t knew the meaning of artistry, but the other Yuuri did, and if he had to take it out of his traumatized brain by force, then fine, it would still be easier than finding it himself.

 

 

In the end, Viktor had needed more than bottle.

As he walked to his apartment fumbled with the keys and stumbled over the piles of paper in the floor he saw today’s events playing over and over again, he would hear his laugh as he moved through his house, and he would see him in front of him.

“What are you hiding?” He would ask to the illusion.

“What are _you_ hiding?” he would respond.

And, if he had been a bit sober he would have realized he had just talked to a mirror.

He would have also realized the eyes of the illusion followed him around even after he had stopped looking **.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I say, you can always found me in Tumblr under the same name, feel free to leave kudos and comments :D I don't know if the next chapter will be ready tomorrow but it will take no longer than thursdayI promise. Thanks for reading!


	4. Ice like broken glass.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mari can't deal with this, Yuri has to many resourses for a fifteen year old, Phichit's a drama queen, Yuuri is a cold bitch, and Viktor is literally frozen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came a bit later than expected due to something I like to call: Relatives being too much. My family is rude, and that is a universal constant. Buuut, I finally ended it. It's a bit lighter than the previous ones, I'm saving my angust and suspense for the next one >:)

Mari woke up to the sound of screaming. 

Standing to fast for her feet to fully wake up, she almost tripped a couple of times before reaching her brother’s room. 

She didn’t truly know what she had been expecting, someone trying to take him away again, maybe; but it was definitely not his brother struggling with his nurses over a pair of scissors. He was  squealing like a hurt animal, eyes blow wide on a fear she didn’t want to see ever again.

“What the hell is going on in here!?” She asked, immediately coming to stand protectively beside his brother.

“We just wanted to cut his hair” said one of them. “He tried to attack us out  of the sudden”

He gaze turned to her brother, whose hands seemed to clung to the locks like his life depended on them.

“Leave us alone” she told them.

She took a seat beside him while they leaved the room.

“Are you okay?”

Yuuri looked at her, a troubled expression in his face.

“They weren’t trying to harm you, you know that, right?” 

She tried her best not to sound like she was mad at him.

“I already know that!” He exclaimed, a regretful expression in his face soon after. “Sorry,  it’s just… they kind of took me by surprise, that and I don’t want them to cut my hair.” There was a slight pink tone on his face.

“It’s a really long hair” She couldn’t help to point out. It had to reach almost the back of knees, she would have been a little jealous if it wasn’t so tousled, there were knots all over the length of it, some of which had not been completely washed off the blood. She understand why they had deemed good to cut it. “You know some parts are unsalvageable right?”

He reluctantly nodded.

“Say what, you can keep it long, but we are cutting all the nasty parts, I’ll try to save as much as I can”

“Okay” He sighed.

She reached for the metal scissors the nurse had left on their way out. 

“And...Mari” He called a little hesitant.

“Yes?” 

“Nothing is just...could you please use another pair  of scissors?”

He hand stopped, her reflect in the blade showed the worry in her face before she left them back in their place.

“Sure” She said. “I think I have one on my bag”

She tried not to think much about his words while chopping the locks of hair off his head.

“I think I can get it right over your shoulders, is that okay?”

“It’s fine” He said.

It was hard not to dwell too much in everything that had happened in the last twentyfour hours.

Detective Giacometti said they were gonna wait till Yuuri had settled home to conduct any interrogation, but she had her own questions. How could she not when things were so different, yet so similar.

She knew it was the same Yuuri, but wherever he had been all this time had certainly left a mark on him, and she feared just how deep that mark could be.

“There it is” She said, cutting the last lock of hair in the back of his head.

“How does it look?” He asked while he bounced his head as if exploring  the newfound lightness in it.

“Well, I’m not a stylist, but I think it looks good, I could bring a mirror if you want…”

“No.” He snapped. 

One time, when she was little, she had found a viper lying around in the onsen, it had stared back at her and hissed, its fangs showing, making her realize just how much poison was on them. That had been the first time she had ever experienced something akin to primal fear. As Yuuri looked at her, eyes colder than she could ever remember, she was able to remember that feel. 

“Uh, okay, I think I’m gonna check if mom hasn’t woke up, it almost 10:00a.m so I guess your doctor should come soon, I’ll be right back.”

This was harden than she originally thought.

In the waiting room where she and the rest of her family had fallen asleep she found Yuuko awkwardly glancing back and forth at her parents, probably wondering if it would be a bad idea to wake them up. Even if she looked like she had barely got any sleep, it was still good to see she no longer seemed about to pass out any moment. 

“Oh, hi Mari, I’m sorry I couldn’t stay yesterday, how’s Yuuri?”

“He’s fine actually, he’s...okay, who am I trying to cheat, he’s fucked up” She gave up against the waiting chairs. “You were the one who found him yesterday, tell me, is it a bad as I think or am I being too pessimistic”

“It’s worst” She told her, letting herself fall in the seat next to her as well.

She wasn’t prepared for this. Her little brother had finally came back, but his mind was probably mangled beyond repair, and the worst part about all that was that she didn’t know how to help, she wasn’t a psychiatr for goodness sake, at this pace she was probably gonna ruin him more if that was even possible.

“It’s the same thing, over and over again. Yuuri is hurt and I can’t do anything about that”

“Don’t you think I know? I wasn’t there the first time, and now Yuuri appears out of nowhere and the only thing can do is freeze. I thought he was dying you know? When i saw the blood.” Mari knew she would have been the same way, had it been her the one who found him. “Has he even said anything to you? He only spoke nonsense with me”

“Only small things, he deflects the conversation when me or the doctors  try to ask, he has remained silent, no name, no explanation, not even a clue about what happened in the past ten years. What was he saying to you?”

“Just some mumbles, keep on whispering something under his breath, he may have said something to the officer who came but I barely remember what happened after that.”

A doctor entered the room.

“Is this Yuuri Katsuki’s family” he asked.

“We are” She turned to shake her parents and Minako. “Wake up, the doctor is going to tell us what’s going on with Yuuri”

Minako grumbled something along the lines of: please tell me he’s not quadriplegic, while her mother got up way too easily for someone who had been exposed to so much stress. 

“Please, can I take my son home already?” she inquired to the doctor.

“Well, I don’t see any reason why not.  Tests came up good, he has couple of small injuries, but nothing too serious. Physically, he’s in a perfect state of health”

She didn’t miss the emphasis in physically.

The car ride was nothing but awkward. Every time they would get to a sharp turn on the road Yuuko and her mother who had seated at either side of Yuuri would freeze, shoulders stiff as they avoided colliding on him. She understood the feeling, to this point it still felt like Yuuri was going to break at any moment. She feared the fact that he hadn’t done already. 

Reporters had already taken over the town by the time they got home. Getting out of the car resulted being a lot  harder when you had their person of interest with you.

“Yuuri! How does it feel to finally be back home after all this time?”

“Where have you been this past ten years?”

“Are the rumors about the Leroys truth? Did they had you locked someplace?”

“Are you going back to skating?”

“How did you escape?”

She evaded them all, pushing them aside while dragging him. Yuuri nervously trying to  avoid looking at them while her mother fumbled with the keys of the door and hauled them inside.

She sighed in relief as soon as the door closed. 

Minako took her phone out, muttering curses under her breath.

“I’m calling that detective Giacometti, see if they can put some officers out there, else we’re going to wake up to reporters breaking out into the house in the middle of the night”

“Everything is the same” 

They all looked back at Yuuri. 

“I kind of expected things to have changed” He said, looking at the photos clinging off the wall, the ones her mother used to stare at in her bad days.

“Well, we didn’t want to touch anything, we always expected you to come back” said her mother.

But the truth was, they hadn’t.

“We even kept your room intact” said her father.

Yuuri ascents, not waiting for them to say anything else before walking down aisle to his room. Something he still remembered.

“Well” said Yuuko “That could have gone worse”

But something wasn’t quite right, some part of her was telling her to run away. She tried to bury those feelings with all of her will.

 

 

Alright, maybe Yuri should have planned things a little bit past: get on plane, find Yuuri Katsuki.

Seeing as he had already done his fair share of traveling across the world for competitions with the rest of the skaters, he hadn’t thought  it could be that hard to do on his own.

Apparently, plane tickets were a lot more expensive than he had originally thought, and credit cards served for a lot more than looking fancy while paying. He was fifteen, cut his some slack.

Unless he asked someone to pay the ticket for him, he was stuck in russia. He supposed he could ask Beka to help him, but it just didn’t feel right. And asking his grandpa was out of the question, his family had enough problems with money already. So, he had done the rational thing, he waited for the female skaters turn to skate and stole Georgi’s exgirlfriend credit card. He even bought him something and set it to arrive the day of his birthday. Georgi could not say he had never done him a favor.

The airport had been a whole other bunch of problems. He had been held at the metal detector when they thought he was carrying knives in his luggage, they barely let him out in time so he could catch his flight.

Yuri was not traveling alone again any time soon.

His plan started to crumble for real the moment he set foot in japan. He had only two clues on how to find Yuuri Katsuki, those being his name, and that he lived in some place named Hasetsu. He didn’t knew where Hasetsu was, and the only japanese vocabulary he had was the word for cat.

Not like that was going to stop him through.

He somehow managed to get his point across in the train station and found more or less how to get there. Or at least he hoped so. 

It was obvious he was in the right place a soon as he walked out in open. The streets were half  full of reporters and half full of people dressed as tourists who were probably there to look for Katsuki as well.

At least things were going fine so far. Next step, find Katsuki Yuuri. The town looked small, so he figured maybe if he shouted his name he would find a clue on where to find him. Not like anyone around here would understood anything else he could say anyway.

Three hours later, he had yet to get anything more than weird looks. 

He sat down at the side of some bridge and tried to think what to do next. He could always keep looking tomorrow, but it would get dark in a couple of hours and he didn’t know where to stay, there were no hotels around, and even if he decided to go back to the city now, it would take too long.

He should have planned this better.

“Eh, excuse me” He heard someone say in a heavily accented english. “Are you Yuri Plisetsky by any chance?”

It was some japanese kid with weird blonde and red hair.

“Yeah, and what?”

The kid started squealing like he had suddenly stopped working.

“Oh my god! You are! I’m a big fan! I’ve watched all of your performances, I was hoping to compete against you when you passed to seniors! What are you even doing in here!? Shouldn’t you be training in russia? Don't tell me are you also a fan of Yuuri Katsuki!? No way!.

“Alright, stop, please, I can barely understand a word you are saying. Do you know where is Yuuri Katsuki?”

“Well, everyone in town knows, he lived at Yutopia inn, I heard they brought him this morning,  I don’t think we would be able to see him anytime soon though, I tend to eat at their place when I come to practice at the Ice Castle, and they’re not letting anyone enter at all. There's some officers at the door, they don’t carry any real weapons, but I heard some reporters who tried to sneak got tasered.”

“Shit”

“Yeah. I didn’t know you were a fan through, to come all the way here.”

“I was hoping he could teach me how to break his world record” 

“What!? That’s impossible! I mean, look at the video, he was god on skates for that performance, you are amazing, but to top that at Juniors, it’s impossible”

Yuri already knew all that stuff, that’s why he was here in the first place.

“Whatever, could you at least tell me where the fuck can I stay in here? I’m kind of lost”

“The only place in Hasetsu is Yutopia actually...Say what!, I was on my way to the ice castle anyway,if you skate wit me, I’ll try to help you find a place on the way back”

That actually sounded kind of good, he could blow some stress at the rink, and if the kid says the truth then he had something else not to worry about for now.

“Fine.” he grumbled.

“Great!” Said the other. “I’m Kenjiirou Minami, by the way. I represent japan in the senior division.”

What?

“You can’t possible be older than fourteen”

The kid, Minami, almost looked offended by that.

“I’m seventeen!” He squealed.

It was going to be a long trip to the ice rink.

When they finally arrived, Yuri thought for a moment the place was locked before he saw Minami taking some keys out and opening the place.

“Hey, can you actually do that?” He asked him. It was his first day here, he was not getting arrested for invading private property.

“What? Oh the keys? It’s fine, I tend to come here to practice regularly, the owners gave me a key.” He clarified.

Yuri still entered the place a little wary. Setting his luggage over the counter at the entrance and looking around  through his clothes for his skates slowly, he was kinda waiting for someone to appear and drag them outside.

The sound of blades scratching the ice caught his attention.

“Hey, wasn’t this place closed?”

“It was” said Minami. “Heard it was Yuuko-san, one of the owners, who found Yuuri. They closed the place to help him settle back today”

“There is someone on the ice” 

He put on his skate guards. The closer he got the more he started to realize just how talented they were.

The blades passed cleanly, the person in there clearly not noticing they were watching them, feet starting a step sequence.

A step sequence he knew by heart. He recognized the person in the ice immediately.

Yuri didn’t knew what to expect when he took that plane to  be honest. Ice skating was sport that requires practice, and even the best of them would get rusty without it. For what he knew, kidnappers didn’t took their victims out for a walk through the park, let alone to an ice rink. Bored out of his mind in the plane, he had prepared himself for all kinds of possibilities; at best, he had expected some really crazy dude who could more or less remember the secrets of his skating and still perform some single jumps, maybe even doubles. At worse, he had expected some traumatized  amnesiac quadriplegic who could barely distinguish the toe pick from the blade. 

But it was clear neither of them were truth as he watched him. An ease in movement that would be impossible with ten years of no practice. Then, he started taking speed. He was going for a jump. Yuri had seen enough ice skating accidents to know that without the proper leg strength, it was gonna go terrible.

“Hey! Don’t do that you idiot!”

But he was already in the air. One, two, three, four rotations. A perfect clean landing. His quad flip was even better than the last time. He heard Minami grasping in the background.

This was perfect.

Yuri knew, if he could get the other Yuuri to teach him, he could not only break his record, he could break the seniors one, win the gold at his first season in seniors. If only he could get Yuuri to teach him.

He heard the blade scratch to a stop; and Yuuri Katsuki was watching at him. He was different from the video, but that was to be expected. Yuri had always thought he looked to fragile in those videos, too emotional, like was going to break at any minute; now that he saw him this close, he had a look which he recognized from every time he stared at the mirror, the look of someone who had gave everything for the ice. 

And he was enthralled.

“You” He said. “You’re going to train me so I can break your world record, I’m not leaving you alone till you say yes”

He felt those eyes analyzing his very being.

“Who are you again?”

Fucking asshole. Ok. Work Yuri, deep breaths, he’s probably been locked into some terrible place all this years, probably doesn’t even know what youtube is, not his fault, don’t kill him just yet.

“Yuri Plisetsky, I’m the current gold medallist at juniors” He said through clenched teeth. 

Minami had yet to recover the ability to speak alongside him.

Yuuri had yet to answer him when the doors opened again and a guy with a selfie stick invaded the place.

 

 

Phichit was going to need more than a selfie stick if he wanted to survive in this place. The police officer at the doors of Yutopia had a teaser and he was not about to find out how fifty thousands volts tasted like. 

“I’m telling you! I’m a friend of Yuuri, I need to see him”

The police officer scoffed.

“Yeah, and I’m his father. Look, you can either wait for a pic with the rest of people outside, or try to enter and fail”

“Can I at least speak with his sister? She knows me!”

“Listen kid, I’m not about to…” The door of the inn opened and half of the people Yuuri had been close to got out in a rush. “Hey, what’s happening?” Asked the same officer he had been arguing earlier to them.

“He’s gone”

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”

“We left him in his room so he could rest a couple of hours ago, I just went to ask him if he wanted Katsudon for dinner and he was not  there!” Answered Yuuri’s sister.

“We haven’t left the door, he didn’t went out”

He took advantage of the situation and did his way to the family without the officers standing in his way.

“Mari! Do you remember me? I’m Phichit, I used to train with your brother” He urged her.

She spared him a glance before going back into panicking.

“Now’s not the time Phichit, Yuuri’s gone again, can you help us find him?”

“I already know where to find him”

All eyes fixed on him.

“You do?” Asked the police officer, hand reaching to the taser gun.

“Of course I do! Think, before everything  happened, when Yuuri left without telling anyone, where did he went?”

He knew Yuuri’s habits by force of being bombarded with Celestino’s angry phone calls in the past, in the times where he randomly decided to train at midnight without telling anyone.

“The ice rink” said a girl Phichit knew as Yuuri’s friend from the documental.

“Exactly, now let’s find him before someone else does”

He had come here a couple of times already, so he already knew the way to Ice Castle.

He omitted to tell them he had his own reasons to be worried about. Yuuri had disappeared in the ice, he shouldn’t be there again.

It was obvious his assumptions had been right the moment he saw the open door. His feet gained speed. Soon enough, Phichit found his friend in the same place he had seen him last in. The ice.

“Yuuri!” He scremaed at the top of his lungs.

He only looked at him for one second before he shadow of recognition passed through his face.

“Phichit?” He asked, already making his way back to him with the skates.

Forget about that, Phichit shoved the two blonde kids who were in his way, slightly wondering who they were before the thoughts of his best friend replaced those and he stepped in the ice, no skate at all and slipping a couple times before getting to him. He hugged him for the first time in years.

“It really is you, right!” He cried in his shoulder.

He cried for real when he heard him laugh.

“Ten years, and you’re still a drama queen”

Phichit could no longer distingue laughing from crying. 

“And you’re still a cold bitch.” He said back. “Talking about cold can we step out of the ice please, I’m slipping”

They made it to the border of the ice, Phichit helping support Yuuri while he put on his skate guards.

One of the blonde kids he had shoved was angrily making his way to them. The one with the leopard print luggage. The kid who reminded him to a chicken nugget was too busy deciding between dying and screaming at the time.

“Who the fuck are you!?”Screamed the blonde at him.

“I’m Phichit!” He answered all too cheerly. “I used to train with Yuuri”

“Well, get out! He’s only taking one student, and it’s gonna be me”

“Who is him again?” He asked Yuuri, ignoring the screaming blonde.

“He said his name is Yuuri Plisetsky or something, wants me to train him so he can break my world record. What is he talking about?” Asked Yuuri with a frown on his face.

Oh, it looked like no one had told him yet.

“Yuuri, you broke a world record the day you disappeared, by almost ten points.”

“But JJ was…”

“You beat him, you won the gold medal”

The place god swarmed by everyone else at that moment.

“Yuuri!” Screamed his mother. Phichit kind of felt bad for her, she looked like she had been crying. He would too if he had lost a son for ten years just to lose him the day after he got back. “Why did you leave like that?”

“I’m sorry I was...did I really win the gold medal?”

Phichit chuckled, some things never changed.

“Don’t you ever do that again. If you want to go out a least tell someone.” His mother keep on reprimanding him.

Mari was a lot calmer through, a small smile making it’s way on her face.

“Next time you do that I letting you out with the press. But yeah, you did, we’ll show you your medal when we get home. Who’s this blondie through?, and why is Minami death over there?

“Some kid who wants Yuuri to train him”

“Really?” said Yuuri’ ballet instructor. “Aren’t you that russian skater who got three points lose to Yuuri’s score in the Juniors last year? Yurio something”

“My, you came all the way here?” Said Yuuri’s mom apparently still not done with being a mom. “It’s getting late, do you have somewhere to stay?”

“Just Yuri!” He screamed. “And no, kid over there told me he was going to help me find a place but...I don’t think he’s gonna move out of his place today”

Yeah, neither did Phichit.

“Well, if you promise not to harass  Yuuri, ours that is, you can stay at Yutopia, we kind of kicked out the guests when they started getting nosy.”

“It’ll have to do.” He said.

“Can someone help chicken nugget through, I think he may have forgot how to breathe.” Interrupted Phichit when everyone started making their ways to the door.

“I’ll do it” Said Yuuri’s friend, the girl  with the bun. “I think I have his mother’s number someplace, you can go  home without me, I’ll visit tomorrow.”

By the time they went out it was already dark. 

They settled into a comfortable silence, walking behind the rest of his family.

Phichit took a moment to appreciate the way Yuuri looked around his own hometown in wonder before speaking.

“You can stop pretending now” He told it.

“What are you talking about?” Asked it seemingly confused.

“You, the one in Yuuri’s body, whatever you like to call yourself. Stop” There was no trace of warmth in his voice.

“Why are you saying those things!? I thought you were happy to see me!” It cried at him, tears falling in the same way Yuuri’s did.

“Yuuri is almost blind without glasses, you are doing fine. Now, tell me, what happened to Yuuri?”

It paused, face going blank for moment before he smirked.

“Wouldn’t you want to know?”

 

 

Viktor had to be drunk to see this.

He didn’t remember when it had started, his obsession with the Katsuki case, whether it was too long ago to remember or too slowly for him to pick a point, it barely mattered at this point.

What did matter is that he wasn’t new to the information. He had studied every frame of video he could find, the official one, the ones made with shaky cameras, the pictures uploaded, the ones who hadn’t. He had analyzed each one of them hundreds of times by now, he had footage from every angle, but never, in any of those videos, had he seen what he saw in this. 

A video on a usb memory that had been shipped overnight to him, from an unknown remittent.

It had been filmed by what he assumed was a small hand camera, the movement a bit shaky, no audio. It showed a close up on Yuuri Katsuki, most probably taken by someone on the stands. The person on the camera said something to him, and he laughed, a slight bit of chubbiness in his cheeks as he did that. It would be his turn to skate, the cameraman would turn back for a moment before getting into a best position to film the free skate, and even if the video had not stopped in that moment, Viktor wouldn’t have been capable of seeing the rest after he catched it. Too fast, probably not even noticeable for the one who had recorded it at that time, but just enough for Viktor to see him.

Yuuri would say something to the cameraman and step on the ice, and a the image would turn to the opposite side, he would see Yuuri again for a second, same blue and white costume, watching his look alike as he stepped on the ice to do his free program.

Viktor runned to the other room and rummaged through the bunch of captions he had that enfoque that same part of the rink, till he found one large enough to look in. It was there. A white and blue blur he had always assumed as part of the decorations.

He turned back to where he had the video,  captured the frame and send it to his printer.

In one hand, he had Katsuki Yuuri, a photo that had been taken in the morning of his disappearance. In the other, the print of the one he had just found. There was no difference.

Which meant one thing. There was two Yuuri’s, both who had never been seen in ten years. One of them came back. He  had to find which one did.

He could not do that from the comfort of his home.

Reuniting all he was going to need took almost half of his day, boxes of files packed in the back of the car he barely even used this days, a lonely box with some clothes, and another one full of Makkachin’s stuff. He took off to Hasetsu, makkachin buckled alongside him.

If Viktor was a logical being, he would have waited till the next day to do the trip, but he wasn’t, and he soon found out when a search in google told him he was gonna need at least five hours to get there. Oh well, he supposed it was too late to turn back now.

Soon enough, he was driving in the dark.

Over the wheel, he tried  to make sense of what he had seen. Maybe Yuuri had a twin, or some distant relative with a striking resemblance. Was it possible they had confused them while ? No, things were too perfect to make a mistake like that. Maybe the lookalike had something to do? No, if the intention was to replace Yuuri they would have done that in the first place.

Then what? How did this fit in the whole picture? 

He had always thought the Leroys to be behind everything, he still did, they had a motive, resources, and were not subtle in their distaste after losing the medal; if someone had taken Yuuri Katsuki it had to be them. But if that was true, he still had to figure how all of this worked together.

Viktor knew this case was going to be the death of him.

The front lights in his car twitched. Dammit, he knew this thing was old, he should have bought a new car with the money of his book. They went off again. He kicked the steering wheel. They went on again.

Fuck, there was someone on road.

He turned the car to the side as fast as he could, the wheels scratching against the pavement as he tried to stop the car safely, the last thing he saw was a tree in front of him before it went dark.

He woke up to worst headache he had had since that morning.

“Makkachin!” He called trying to ignore the way shouting made the pain even worse. “Are you alright?”

A muffed woff alongside him calmed all of his worries. Good, at least he was okay for now. Next step, finding out if he himself was okay.

His head hurt like crazy, and he was sure the wet thing on his cheek was blood, his hand had pieces of glass stuck in them, the window were broken. He was cold. 

Weird, he was sure it had stopped snowing earlier that morning, he thought, forcing his eyes to look around. There was ice in the steering wheel, there was ice covering every inch of his car.

“It’s already here, Viktor”

He jumped, Yuuri sat alongside him, Makkachin at his feet barking loudly at the outside.

“What are you doing in here? How did you find me?”

He ignored him, turning to kick the door at his side till it opened with a crack.

“We need to get out, or it will catch you, both of us”

Viktor was no longer sure he was ready to know the answer behind this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it. Tell me your opinion, find me in Tumblr, all that good stuff :). Also, I'd like to end next one tomorrow, but if not it's gonna be posted till sunday or monday, for now all I'm gonna say it's that Viktor and Yuuri will finally get to ineract for more than three lines, and JJ is gonna be all over the place to break ur hearts.


	5. Burning inside.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Viktor starts to do his job, JJ suffers but gets himself a friend, Yuuri tries to get it on, and Phichit is the only responsable adult in this house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After suffering from a writer block, I'm back. Here to give you another chapter and make you suffer. Enjoy your stay.

The car was unsalvageable. That much was clear in the morning and without a minor concussion. Viktor wondered how was it even possible for him to be walking in two feet with it looking like that. Through, he should have gotten the idea when Yuuri kicked the door down so easily.

That part in  his memory continued to be blurry.

If his memory served him right, and it didn’t tend to, he had just been entering the town of Hasetsu when someone appeared out of nowhere in the road, he had turned the car, lost control and crashed. Next thing he knew, Yuuri Katsuki was in his car dragging him and his dog through a snowstorm all the way to his family’s inn.

At that moment, his mind had been too blurry to even plant questions clearly, he hadn’t even noticed the numbness in his legs and arms till he had been in a heated space and Yuuri gave him some blankets. Even now, he still  felt the cold creeping inside him, his teeth still clattering at moments.

Now, fully awaken after passing out at whatever room Yuuri had let him sleep in and walking back to where all his things where, he had questions.

For one, he wondered if he had hurt someone, which was clearly answered as a no when he found no indications of having hit anyone and an unharmed Makkachin moved his tail happily at his side. Next, he wondered how in hell had Yuuri been in there, and what he was talking about when he told him to run. He also wondered which Yuuri was this. The real Yuuri, or the other?

He really should put some fancy labels in this case, Yakov said it was good for publicity.

On the other side, he really should take more care more about sorting his things at that moment. The boxes full of vital information he had taken with him had opened during the crash and sprawled their contents everywhere, even outside of the car. He needed to sort his priorities or something, cause there was no way in hell would he be able to take everything with him on one go. So, the number one question to answer now was, what did he need to find the most at this moment?

Well, the anonymous memory would be a good start. He needed it if he wanted to prove there was in fact two Yuuri’s to look out for.

He started sorting through the piles of frozen paper; photos, some copies of testimonies Christophe had gotten for him, more photos, a copy of his book, he should take that with him, served as a good resume if he didn’t remember something; reports on the original investigations…

A buzz made him jump in his place.

It took him exactly thirty seconds of looking around for something to defense himself with when he realized that the sound probably belonged to his phone, and that, miraculously, it hadn’t frozen to death. He rummaged more through the paper till he recognized the light of his screen and Chris’s winking face in the contact photo as the one calling him.

“Hi” He picked.

“Have you had any breakfast?” Christophe's stern voice said on the other side.

“Eh..yeah” He went back to looking through the papers, this looked like a social call.

“Coffee is not breakfast”

“Then no”

“Hmmm, and you didn’t spend the night with anyone am I right?”

“I don’t have time for that, the case just reopened”

Damn, it still didn’t appear. Maybe it just was under the seats?

“Yeah I figured. So, taking that out, can you tell me why I found your apartment like it just got attacked by a raging tornado this morning when I came to bring you a proper meal?”

Right, he forgot to tell Chris.

“Well, I...kinda got a clue and packed to stay at Hasetsu”

“Fascinating, now tell me why you didn’t pick my calls till now, don’t try to tell me you slept in, I know you’re an early riser”

He really didn’t want to tell him to be honest. He already thought Viktor was too invested in the case, if he found out he had undergone a crash accident because of his recklessness he was not gonna hear the end of it.

“I...um, got low on battery?”

“...yeah, sure. I sending a patrol to bring you here”  
“No! Shit, listen. I may or may not have gotten involved into an accident, my car crashed into a tree, just went back and found my phone in here, nothing serious, it will just gotta need some little fixes, maybe a  new paint job.”

It was going to need some futuristic kinda magic to be fixed but Chris didn’t need to know that.

“Are you okay!? Why didn’t you call me?! Please don’t tell me you killed someone”

There it was.

“Bingo!” He guarded it in his pocket.

“What?! You did!?”

Damn it, what was Chris saying again?

“Eh, no, the only victim was the tree. I’m fine, just some bruises”

He took some other things he had already put to the side, his book, some diagrams of the ice rink, interviews, some reports, and a close up from a different perspective of the Yuuri in the video, he put it all in a single box to carry with him, along with some of Makkachin things and a couple of clothes.

“Are you sure?”   He didn’t sound convinced.

“Yeah, yeah, totally sure” He replied absently.

His gaze stopped at the window, there was a handprint in there, from the outside. It didn’t look like cold had melted underneath it, more like...the crystal froze underneath it. He  traced it with his own hand, the ice burning his skin as he tried to touch it. Long fingers, a wide palm, the callused middle finger. It matched his own hand to perfection.

“Chris I gotta go, call you later”

He moved a couple more papers underneath the seat till he found what he was looking for.

He was going to need his gun.

 

 

 

JJ thought it was going to end.

“I don’t know how you got in here, but you better get out now, I’ll call the officers outside and they’ll throw you in jail as soon as they recognize you”

He had only meet Mari once before. After everything that happened at the finals there hadn’t been time for the medalists to stand on the podium, not while the police interrogated everyone in there looking out for Yuuri. They made a honorary ceremony at the gala, Yuuri’s family had been there to receive the medal in his place, and JJ had approached her wanting to say sorry after what his parents had said. He remembers the way she looked at him, a scowl in her face.

“Don’t ever try to talk to me again” She had said.

Later on he had been booed by the audience while receiving his silver and she had remained silent. She thought he deserved it.

He had never been in proximity to her again, till now. And things didn’t seem to have changed.

“Yuuri should have told you by now! I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to him”

“I don’t know what kind of things he’s gone through, but he refuses to say a word about that, I don’t know how you messed with his head, but you are not doing it again, get out!”

He was just opening his mouth again when he entered.

“Who are you screaming at, Mari?”

He had seen that face too many times before not to recognize it now, longer hair and sharper features be damned. The boy who destroyed him by leaving, the one who was in front him again.

Brown eyes meet dark blue.

“Oh, hi JJ, it’s been a long time”

He wanted to hug him, he wanted to scream at him, he wanted him to tell the truth, he wanted to punch him, he wanted to twist his neck. He wanted those thoughts to get away.

_Break him, crush him._

“Yuuri get out, you don’t have to see this asshole”

“What has he done?”

“Well, for starters he’s the one behind what happened to you!”

“You don’t know what happened to me” JJ was surprised to hear him use such a cold tone against his sister. “We have no guests and he probably came here all the way from Canada, get him a room”

It wasn’t a request.

Mari still took a moment to process that, her eyes darting between him and her brother, before recluctantly mumbling something about preparing the room and leaving.

Yuuri turned to look at him.

“I’m sorry about that”

You have more than that to be sorry about, he thought.

“I’m used to it by now” he replied instead.

“Mari is still gonna take a while, the last guests left in a rush after being asked to leave, so the rooms are still pretty much a disaster; want to go for a walk?”

His hands twitched at the thought of being alone with him.

“Yeah, it’s alright”

His brown eyes seemed to almost seize him for a moment before speaking again.

“We should take the back door, it’s full of press outside”

He followed.

The situation almost left him feeling a bit scared. Scared of himself that was. He knew the thoughts that rounded his head at times had to stop. He knew that almost as well as he knew how much he wanted to take his life back, and he knew that becoming what everyone else expected him to be was just going to turn his life even worse.

Yet, he couldn't help but think about his shorter and almost delicate figure, and how easy would it be to walk all the way to that bridge he had passed and push him into the freezing water. A sorry accident no one could relate him to.

“You have changed” He interrupted his train of thoughts.

“It’s been ten years” He responded. Ten years of suffering because of you, he thought.

“I heard some reporters say that they think you did it”

“Think is an understatement”

“I know you didn’t”

“Then you should tell them that” He didn’t bother to hide the bite in his voice.

“I will”

They settled into an uncomfortable silence.

“Do you hate me, JJ?”

Did he?  

He knew Yuuri wasn’t to blame from everything that happened to him, if anything, the one who kidnapped him was the one to blame. But, after years of being treated like shit by the world, he supposed Yuuri had become a symbol of his misfortune. The scapegoat of his rage.

“Hate is a strong feeling” He evaded.

“It is, you used to had a lot of those, the good ones it is, you went all over the place screaming JJ Style at anyone, willing to listen or not. Your eyes sparkled when you did it”

He let a little laugh at that.

It had been years since he last did his signature move, afraid of the reactions it had elicited in the few times after what happened with Yuuri. He had kind of forgotten about it till now.

“It’s been a long time since that, I matured” He told him. The last thing he needed from Yuuri was pity.

“No, you don’t. I can see you still want to do it”

He half heartedly glared at him. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

“It’s silly”

“It’s not, it made you happy”  
It did.

“And?” He asked. He had long since given up in doing things for himself. Happiness came to him in dosified takes, still there but only to appear at counted scarce times.

“You don’t look like you are much happy this days”

Yuuri had never been that good at reading people, he thought. Some things changed.

“You should do it again”

He stopped to look at him, fully this time, searching through that chubby cheeked face for sign if he was trying to make fun of him.

“No”

“Come on”

“I’m not doing it”

“For the good times” Yuuri pleaded at him, those big brown puppy eyes staring at him.

He kinda wanted to do it.

“Alright, but just once”

He turned to look around, he didn’t need anyone seeing this and uploading it somewhere for the world to keep trying to crush him.

“I’m waiting” Chimed Yuuri.

“If you tell anyone about this I’m actually gonna kill you this time”

“Just get on with it”

He took a moment to remember the proper way to do it, his arms flexing and crossing in a movement he had almost forgotten, fingers positioning and thumb curling. When he smiled, he found himself not faking that at all. He winked at the only person in front of him.

“It’s JJ Style!”

Yuuri applauded, and JJ found the words tasting sweet in his tongue.

 

 

 

By the time Viktor went back to the inn his legs had gone numb again, and last thing he wanted was to do yet another trip for the rest of his things. Maybe he could just leave them there, that one road had almost no traffic and his car was already hidden via snow and trees he hadn’t hit in the way of the one he had.

Yeah, he could leave them in there for now.

He opened the backdoor he had initially gotten out from to find Yuuri’s sister with a frown in her face.

“You know, when we evacuated the guests, it wasn’t for this place to become an hostel for everyone obsessed with my brother. First it was that russian skater kid along with Yuuri’s rink mate, then that trashbag JJ this morning. Now you”

He fidgeted with the box in his arms.

“I, uhm, slept in here last night, Yuuri let me in” More like dragged him in “Didn’t you saw my dog? I left him here while I went for my things”

“Oh, yeah, I saw him, the big poodle. I thought it was a stray, Yuuri used to pick them all the time when he was little. He really shouldn’t be going out” she frowned.

He stood there awkwardly, the box slipping a little from his numb arms.

“Well, you gonna enter or what? Just for the record I expect you to pay your stay, you’ve gotten enough money out of us as of now”

“Yeah, I’ll pay you as soon as I get wallet with me” He responded while walking as fast as he could to the room he had slept last night. He forgot to look for his wallet and it was too cold outside for him to go look for it now.

Yuuri was waiting in his room when he finally got in.

“We need to stop meeting like this” He told him, dropping the box on a corner and making a cocoon out of himself with a blanket.

“And how exactly is this” said Yuuri, hand stoking Makkaching between his ears.

“You know, out of nowhere, one of us being in a state of shock”

“You are not in shock now”

“I’m cold, it counts”

He really was cold, even covered by the blanket it still felt like he had just been submerged in a thousand ice cubes. Yuuri looked at the box he had just dropped with curiosity.

“Why did you come here?” He asked, making his way to the box and looking through the things he had in there. He had already hidden the gun with him, so Viktor was too cold to care.

“To solve what happened with you, why did you disappeared, who was behind it”

“You are a detective?” He asked eying the book he had just found.

“Sorta, but you should know that, you asked for me when you showed up”

“I didn’t knew what you did at that moment” He replied absently.

“Then what did you know?”

Yuuri looked at him coldly. Viktor thought that look did suit his pretty eyes.

“Are you  interrogating me, Viktor?” He seemed annoyed.

He was kind of doing that actually, and he was conscious of the fact he was not smooth doing it. But he couldn’t help it, with the pass of the years Yuuri had almost become an idolized figure to him. He loved to unveil every part of his story, the good, the bad, Viktor didn’t care, and every part succeeded in surprising him more than the other. He knew the boy in front of him, but he also knew that information served for nothing after all this time, with the real deal in front him. It was as if he had been looking at a picture of a fire all this time, memorizing the information and the ways it had twisted in the past; and now, he had the fire itself in front him, a whole new existence twisting and changing in front him, and he needed to touch it knowing quite well he was going to burn.

“I want you” He said before realizing it. His cheeks burning when he did a moment later. “Your story I mean! I want to know your story!”

He chuckled, and Viktor realized fire was a good comparison. Something in him changed and burned as quick as the fire did.

He started closing the space between them, a couple of things from the box in his hands as he did. He seated right in front him, Viktor had never been as close to him as he was now.

“Do you like me, Viktor?” He asked, a playful smile in his face.

Viktor’s face burned a second time.

“It's not like that! I…”

“You seem to be more than a lot interested in me” He said again, getting closer till their knees touched. “You have photos, words and words of information, you even wrote a book about me, why?”

His eyes were burning, so close Viktor could count the lashes in them.

“What do you want from me Viktor?”

What did he?

He had the fire in front him, their breaths mixing, cold and burning.

“I  want to know everything about you” He found himself answering. “Who  are you? How do you work? What are you hiding from me?”

“Is that so?” He teased.

Their hands were touching, Viktor could almost feel the warmth of his lips close to him, he could describe every bit of those eyes as they pierced at him. It clicked.

“You are the other one” He said still in his stupor.

“What?” Asked the other one, face still fractions of an inch from his own.

“I wondered which Yuuri you were. The real one was almost blind, and your eyes are burning right through me.” He replied still lost in them.

They went cold for a second before burning again.

“Does it matter, through? I’m still Yuuri, don’t you want me?”

He barely had time to brush his lips with the other when the door opened loudly and a boy he slowly recognized as a blogger he followed on twitter named Phichit invaded the place, draggin Yuuri away from him way too quickly.

“Am I interrupting something!” He said all too cheerly. “Sorry, Sorry, I’m going to need Yuuri here for a moment, you can go back at that later! Or how about never, never sounds good. Forget that happened, Vitya, ‘kay? Bye!”

Viktor stayed frozen in his place minutes after that, wondering what in hell just happened while still in his blanket cocoon. The cold creeped back at him.

 

 

 

“Can you not?”

Phichit had barely gotten there in time to prevent a disaster.

“Not what?” The other said, an innocent smile in it’s face.

“Advance at Viktor like that! Do you no have any respect to Yuuri’s feelings?”

It scoffed.

“Yuuri would thank me”

He glared at it.

“I take my words back, you are the real cold bitch”

“Can I help it? Yuuri would probably spill too much, he’s too nice and Viktor’s too clueless”

“So you fix it, by banging him”

“Maybe it will trigger his memory” it shrugged.

“Stay away from Viktor, Yuuri can deal with this on his own”

“He’s gonna find out anyway, and he better does before it all comes down”

Phichit stared as it walked back to Yuuri’s room.

With a sigh, he went back to his own room. This was harder than he expected.

That thing refused to listen to reasons, and Yuuri  was way to comfortable with it to his liking, even after his friend asked him to trust in him. He didn’t like the fact they refused to tell him the whole story. And to make it all worse Viktor was here. How was he supposed to sort everything out now!?

Things were so bad he hadn’t even posted a thing in twentyfour hours, a whole day!

He was not a freaking wizard, he had no clue on what to do and things just seemed to get worse by the minute.

It was time to relax, he wouldn’t solve anything while panicking.

He took his bag out, opened his laptop and started crafting some blog post that will hopefully keep his followers happy and informed them of the fact he was now in Hasetsu without giving in the fact that he personally knew Yuuri. He should probably tweet it first.

The post got his first likes at the same time his door opened.

Yuri Plisetsky entered his room without asking.

He was his third problem. A kid with too much ambition snooping around their business. If  he didn’t keep a close eye on him, he was going to get burned. The last thing they needed was another person getting involved in something that just concerned the three of them.

“You said you trained with the nutcase, right?”

“Well, I prefer to start with a: Hello Phichit, how are you? But yeah, this works too”

He said without stopping typing.

“I looked you up, you were decent”

Maybe if he kept on typing he will go away.

“However, you didn’t seem to improve drastically under Celestino’s coaching, so I assume it wasn’t that which made Katsuki a great skater”

He saw where this was going.

“You were his rink mate, do you know anything?”

“Not a lot, you should ask Yuuri” he replied trying to sound as absent as he could.

“You’re lying”

“I’m not” He chirped, changing his game in hopes to annoy him.

“You’ve been typing the word hamster over and over again since we started talking”

He gave a close look at his screen. Note to self, acquire the ability to talk, type and be annoyed at the same time.

“Alright, seat, ask whatever you want, I won’t promise to respond to anything you say” He answered to him, still in that cheery voice he liked to use to annoy everyone.

Plisetsky helped himself to a pillow and seated.

“How did he do it?”

“Did what in specific?”

“The quad flip! His grace and artistry or whatever! I’ve been slaving myself ever  since I saw his performance and barely started landing my flip a few months ago. He never even landed a quad in competition till that one performance, and he was good at step sequences before, but the one he did that time was a whole thing out of his level! He didn’t cheat, that’s clear. So, how did he do it?”

He huffed, still struggling to maintain the smile in his face.

“It doesn’t matter! You are good skater now! Keep practicing, you’ll get there eventually”

“No”

The kid was too ambitious.

“I need to break his record now, I’ve got another year to get there, if I take longer people will give the credit to my age, no one will take me seriously, this is my last chance!”

“You should move to seniors” He told him instead. “Make history there, it’s better believe me”

“I don’t care about the price!” He shouted again. “It doesn’t matter if I get to do it”

He was wasting his patience.

“Do you want me to tell you the truth!?”

“Yes!”

“You won’t make it in a year, maybe in a couple more, but as of now, there is no chance, you’ll kill yourself before making it”

“Katsuki did” He responded him between clenched teeth.

“And where is he now?”

Plisetsky’s eyes were sending daggers at him.

“I’m going to find out, and  when I do you’re gonna regret this”

He left his room not without bangging the door hard enough for it to resone through the hallway.

Phichit sighed again and let himself fall to the floor. It was for the better, Yuri was just a kid, even if he was a whole bunch louder and annoying than Yuuri, he didn’t know what he was getting into. If he knew, he’ll be thankful.

“This is gonna be hard” he lamented again.

His eyes darted to the black screen of his laptop, his reflection sneered at him.

“You shut up” he told it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like everyone to picture the fact that Viktor is a blanket cocoon while being seduced by bootleg Yuuri, seriously, I wanted to get in the mood to write that scene but then I remembered that fact and just couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, while my writer block was there I still got some planning on, so I know what to do in the next ones, just need to write them down, If all goes well, I'll be posting around 4 to 5 chapters per week.  
> Tell me if you enjoyed it! As I say, you can find me in Tumblr under the same name, send me a message!, I may get a twitter, but that is still in the process.  
> In the next chapter, I'll even read my notes to you, quoting myself: Vktr n JJ tk, Yux2 s br, Chrs n Phc nvstgt. I'm a pro at this taking notes thing, even in a tinyass notebook, beleive me.


	6. Cold Cold Cold Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I come back from the death to bring this to you. JJ still has it bad, Chris does his job even at the hardest of times and Phichit still can't deal with his bad luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, I'm not death. Don't kill me please, these writer blocks are the stuff of nightmares. Anyway, in response to all your lovely comments, thank you for the support! Also I noticed some ofyou are confused by the whole two Yuuris stuff, and all I can say without spoiling is: it is all done on purpose, don't worry, it is intended to be confusing, it will all make sense in the end. And one more thing before the chapter begins, I'm looking for a beta reader, you may find more info in that at the end of the chapter. For now, I'll just let you read.

JJ could tell you a thing or two about rejection. That it stung, that it left marks. He could also tell you that it had become a constant in his life after that one grand prix final.  
There were different types of reject; silent and direct, professional and romantic. Lots and lots of types of rejection. And he knew each one of them, had experienced it, and could recall which one stung the most.  
That’s why, at this point, he should have known not to expect things or take them for sure. Should have been being key words again. Because if one thing was sure was that those words tended to follow him around like a haunting. He lived like a subject to them, and yet each and everytime he would expect things to be different, to get better. And they didn’t.  
Reject was a constant in his life, and at this point he should have been aware of that.  
Reject, again, became a thing he was aware of as soon as he was in front of Viktor Nikiforov’s room.  
You see, when he left in a rush after seeing that one news report, well, reject as a possibility was not a thing in his mind. He spent the last of his savings on a plane ticket and left his fiance with little less than a few words of explaining, all to fly to the other side of the globe for the tiny possibility that the man would recognize his innocence and help him prove it.  
So there he was, sock clad feet curling above cold wooden tiles, Inches apart of Viktor’s room, which was also not that far away from his own room in the inn.  
In a way, things had gone theoretically good to this point. He had only approached the inn in hopes of catching Viktor at some point, maybe when he went to speak with Yuuri. He hadn’t expected the man to already be there.  
Not even a week since Yuuri reappeared and he was already somewhere he hadn’t expected.  
So here he was, the steaming from the mug having receded since he stepped in front of the door.  
How was he supposed to do this again?.  
There was a twinge of fear accumulating itself on his gut. If Victor rejected him, he would have no were to go next. He would be lost, all that he lost would be for nothing. He didn’t even have money to go  back to Canada.  
But then again, if he didn’t do it at all, the result would be the same. He just had to convince him.  
He called at the door. He could hear him moving inside it for a couple moments before the door slided and cold blue eyes stared at him, a flash of recognition in them.  
“You are Jean-Jaques Leroy” He said eying him cryptically.  
Well, at least he didn’t have to introduce himself.  
“Yeah, uhm, can we talk for a bit? I brought cocoa”  
Viktor continued to eye him for a moment before snatching the cup of cocoa and stepping aside from the door.  
“Enter” he said.  
JJ wasted no time in doing just as told.  
His room looked a little bit larger than the one he had received himself, but that could very well be explained by the fact that he knew at lest a couple of their hosts weren’t that thrilled to have him in their house. Nevertheless Viktor had taken the best out of that, seeing as he had apparently installed all of his investigation in here. It was hard to believe he had barely spent two or three days in the room. There were boxes all over the floor, the contents of which were probably up in the corkboard, photos and papers he recognized as being related to the case. He was a little versed inn the case as well of course, but the extents of detail that board had definitely spoke about how invested Viktor was in the case.  
An air current make him shiver, he looked around for the open window that could be the coarse of that just found none. Maybe it was a thing of the building, or maybe Viktor covered even that window with all of his papers.  
“It’s chilly in here” He commented to him, trying to initiate small chatter and taking a sip of his cocoa in hopes a getting a bit warmer.  
“Yeah” Said him, drinking hungrily from his own cup. “It seems they got me the coldest room in the inn”  
JJ didn’t get to identify if the silence that followed was awkward or just plain boring as they sipped from their cups. He was prolongating the moment as much as he could.  
“So?” asked Viktor suddenly.  
“So what?”  
“Why are you here” Asked him straight to the point.”If I’m on the right, you live in Canada, that is nowhere near here, we both know your life has been the opposite of stellar, based on that I doubt you came here on vacations. I don’t think you can cost it so easily and even if you could somehow, I doubt Hasetsu would be your number one choice of relaxing. So, why are you here?”  
“I wanted to ask for your help”  
“I don’t do illegal things” He said as if reciting from a pamphlet.  
“It’s not like that!” He said a bit too exalted. “See that, it’s why I need your help. Everyone thinks I abducted Yuuri, they’re waiting for the opportunity of throwing me in jail.”  
“And did you? Abduct Yuuri?” He replied calmly.  
“I didn’t! You have to believe me”  
He hummed a bit in response, eyes alternating from different points in the board he had settled and the rim of his cup.  
“I want you to help me prove it” He said to fill the silence. Viktor continued to hum.  
“You see Jean, the thing is, I have my suspicions too.”  
“But..!”  
“No, hear me out. You don’t come to me like a bad guy, but the facts are this, out of everyone in the rink that night, you and your family are the only ones who would have a reason to take him away. There is no evidence or proof that you were the ones who did all the work, but you could have paid someone to do it”  
“And why would we keep him all this years if all we wanted was for me to win!?” He replied, having repeated those same words over and over in the past.  
“I don’t know. Maybe you couldn’t bring yourselves to actually kill him. Maybe you got regrets and finally decided to let go of the poor boy after all this years. It’s and hypothesis, maybe you didn’t actually do it at all.  But I can’t tell culprits at this point for sure, so, I can’t help you.”  
JJ could feel the anxiety building up inside him. The base of his throat constricting, the lack of air. His mind turning into a a pile of mangled How can I help this. He needed to turn this around,  he couldn’t walk out without his promise of help.  
“I can pay you, just help me look into this and you’ll find I didn’t do it, I’ll pay you even then” He called desperately.  
“I’m sorry, I don’t work that way”  
“Then ask Yuuri! He will tell you the truth!”  
“He has been lost for ten years, under unknown circumstances, nothing he say can be truly trusted”  
It was all breaking down.  
“Please” He cried out. “I have nothing left, I can even go back to my home, this is my last chance to fix this”  
His voice felt tiny. He was just trying to ask for his mercy now.  
“You’ll have to find a way.” Viktor told him, eyes cold as ice. “If you say the truth it will be proved eventually. Now leave, and don’t go snooping around in this case, you’ll just make it worse.”  
He just realized he had been thrown out when the door snapped behind him.  
His legs gave up against the wall.  
Well, he had predicted the situation perfectly, he thought in his head; still not quite coming to terms with it. He vaguely had the realization that he was crying.  
Viktor was not going to help him. Damn, he didn’t even gave him a chance.  
What was he supposed to do now? There is no way to be in a worse situation than this.  
Maybe he could try and call his parents? No, that wouldn’t be right, they had money, but it was all part of their retirement found, he couldn’t ask that of them. He couldn’t ask Isabella either, he couldn’t let her see just how low he had sunk.  
“JJ?” He heard Yuuri ask.  
Oh right, he realized again, he was obstructing the path to his room.  
“I’ll just move, don’t mind me” he told him weakly, trying his best to conceal the fact that he had been crying.  
Yuuri crouched in front him instead.  
“What happened with Viktor?” He asked him, something in his tone leaving clear that he was moving from there till he answered.   
He felt the anxiety building up in him again.  
“He’s not going to help me, it seems you’re going to have me here for a while, I’m stranded” He tried to brush it off with a laugh. It even sound fake to his ears.  
Yuuri sat to his side, the forgotten cup of cocoa making it’s way to his hands.  
“And what will you do?”  
“Didn’t you hear? He’s not going to help me, I can’t go back to Canada, and for all I know it’s just a matter of time before they judge me for abducting you”  
“Then don’t let it”  
He turned to look at him.  
“What do you mean?”  
“Viktor doesn’t have any secret deduction powers. If he won’t help you, do it yourself. You were there that night, use your witness advantage” He handled him the cup, it was warmer than when he let it on the floor. “I’ll help you if you want. Just don’t give up on yourself so easily, you’ll find a way out” e said, getting up and   making his way to his room. JJ almost didn’t found his voice in time to call him again.  
“You could also tell me who did it” He told him.  
Yuuri smiled at him.  
“That would be cheating”

 

 

Detective work, contrary to what Chris thought when he accepted the job, was a lot less of Sherlock intrigue with a dubiously platonic partner, chasing criminals and running lab tests at CSI speed than he had expected. If he had to describe it, it revolved a lot more of sitting on desks, filling boring papers, reading boring papers, while waiting for weeks for the lab tests that contrary to popular belief, didn’t solve crimes instantly. The closest thing he had of partner was Viktor, and while he recognized that the man had an award winning fine ass, their relationship consisted in a lot more of platonic flirting and Chris reminding Viktor to eat properly than the actual TV flirting everyone knew was leading to a wedding.  
That would have been acceptable of course, if the cases were a little more interesting. This days it mostly revolved around, fraud, fraud, one or two passionate murders, fraud again, maybe a couple misunderstandings, and lots and lots of drunk drivers and overdosed people whose family's sweared to god they were the closest thing to an angel of the lord in this earth.  
In that sense, the Katsuki case was an interesting break. Or at least he thought so. He had  read the old files of  course, he did it as soon as he got the work. He had read the files on hopes of opening his career by solving the unsolvable case. It had been useless of course, but that hadn’t taken away his interest for the case, more like increased it. He probably sended those same files to Viktor in hope of getting some answers, and in all truth before the kid appeared some days ago Chris had been sure that the one to actually solved it was gonna be Viktor eventually. So much dedication had to serve for something after all.  
Alas, Yuuri appeared, and as much as he trusted Viktor to help him, solving that case was his work now, and he wasn’t gonna falter at it. It had to be more interesting than all the others after all.  
So far, the only new interesting thing had been the kid calling Viktor’s name. He had to stop himself from calling him kid in his head, after all, for all that others had it for remember him as a sweet kid on a blue and white costume breaking records with a smile in his face, it was Chris’s work to actually remember the fact that said kid was just a year or so younger than him. He had also seen his dick, but that was a different topic.  
Going back, Yuuri calling Viktor’s name still was his biggest lead. The DNA test  was positive and he had yet to receive the psychological one. The doctor’s report said there was no restraining  marks on his hand or feet, no sign of torture. There were indeed a couple scratches, and some ankle past injuries. He had asked the doctor if the injuries could have been caused by skating. The response had been more than enlightening through. Word by word: They are indeed injuries consistent with skating, but, to my judgment, they’re definitely more recent than a decade.  
With this in mind the picture was more than weird. Yuuri had been gone for ten years. If he was contained, it wasn’t by  the usual means. They let him skate, skate enough to hurt himself. And they had told him about Viktor. Maybe they gave him the book? Some weird psychological torment? Then why risking to let him skate? Maybe he had been sold as a pet slave to some weird skating fetishist? He hadn’t received the rape test result. It was improbable thorough, those kind of people tend to stick to the usual chains to wall thing. They also tended to kept their victims styled, and Yuuri looked like he hadn’t got a haircut on years, so that couldn’t be it.  
So far, the only alternative was one he didn’t want to think about at all.  
Viktor.  
He didn’t want to ever harvest the thought of Viktor being the one behind everything. As a Friend, someone who was in close quarters to him, he knew it was impossible for Viktor to be anywhere near guilty, for all that Viktor liked to close himself to others he was a bunch of marshmallows in the inside, incapable of physically hurt others if it wasn’t in self-defense. On a professional view through, things took a different turn. Viktor fit the criminology of their subject. He’d been obsessed with Yuuri for years, his whole existence revolved around him; and it wasn’t just because of the case. Chris had seen Viktor watching tapes of numerous choreographies Yuuri had skated before disappearing, ones that had nothing to do with the case; he’d watch them over and over with a look of adoration in his eyes. Chris had always thought it had been something that came with involving himself way too much in the case. Like those detectives that visited victim’s family's on Christmas. But what if it wasn’t like that?  
Chris had met Viktor when he got his job, a couple of years back, and Viktor had already been a die hard fanboy of the case back then, and who know for how long at that. Could it be possible that Viktor had already been obsessed with him ten years back? That he abducted Yuuri and kept him somewhere as some sort of trophy? Somewhere safe enough to don’t have to bother about restraints? That he kept him skating as an entertainment? That Yuuri escaped or Viktor let him go with ulterior motives?  
All that was speculation of course, nonsense. He knew Viktor and he wasn’t that sort of person, he was too kind to do something so twisted. But then again, he kept on repeating that to himself, that he knew Viktor, cause if  he was on the wrong, if he didn’t knew him all that well, then the alternative was much worse.  
He needed to stop thinking like that, that canal of thought only gave him an extra doses of stress. It was better to focus on the work right now. He searched thorough the stack of papers for a specific file.  
Celestino Cialdini. Not a lot was to say about him lately. After Yuuri disappeared he kept training the rest of his pupils for the rest of that season. He could have done well in that line of job, with Yuuri breaking a record like that, even if he disappeared  every skater wanted to be held under his tutelage. Even so he apparently left the job after that, and has refused to take anyone to this day. In reference to the case, there wasn’t a lot to say, they took his testimony, kept a somewhat normal vigilance on him and his skaters to see if anyone seemed too happy about Yuuri’s vanishing, but nothing came out of that. He wasn’t even regarded a suspect. Nevertheless Chris wanted to make him some questions, maybe the course of the years had taken something afloat. He had given the police his private number back then, Chris only hoped he hadn’t changed it.  
The phone ringed for a long while, he was about to hang when someone answered. A deep voice, if a little rash, that still held a bit of Italian accent.  
“Yeah, Is this Celestino Cialdini?, I’m Christophe Giacometti, the lead investigator of the Katsuki case, just wanted to make you a couple of questions.”  
He heard the man sigh, a creaking sound signaling he had taken seat.  
“So it is truth? Is it really him?”  
“The DNA test just came up, it’s him. So, will you be up to some questioning?”  
He heard a sharp intake of breath. The line remained silent for a couple of moments.  
“…Good. You may ask whatever you want, but I have nothing to say that I haven’t before”  
“It will not take long” He reassured him, taking out his notepad and pen. “First I wanted to ask about Yuuri, that last jump has been the talk for years. I’m not trying to discredit him, but could it be possible that he took any form of drug in order to succeed at it?”  
“You wouldn’t be the first to ask.” The other answered a little grudgingly “The answer is no, he had just passed a drug test, and even so, Yuuri was…is not that kind of person, dedicated and stubborn yes. But he would have  never risked his career by taking drugs. As to how he achieved the jump, I still don’t know to this day.”  
His tone left very clear to Chris that he shouldn’t keep pushing the theme.  
“Alright. Then, did he had any enemies, rivals? Someone too happy after he vanished? Someone who got an opportunity thanks to it?”  
“Yuuri was not one to make enemies. He tended to attract people, not that he had lots of friends, he was rather timid, but he very loved overall. I know everyone says this kind of things, but no one could stay mad a Yuuri for too long. As to people succeeding because of that, believe me, no one wanted to try and fill his place. Just look at the Leroy kid, he retired the next year.”  
He wrote down the Leroys as subjects of interest. He wasn’t as quick as the rest of the world to deem them guilty, but it would be good to keep an eye on them, just if a clue pointed in their direction.  
“Alright, then what about other kind of attention? Was there any person who showed too much interest in the skaters around that time? Someone who asked too many questions? Someone who appeared way too regularly around them? Some very avid fan?”  
“There  were always fans, through that kind of attention tended to focus mainly in the more advanced skaters, no one really stood out”  
Chris sighed. Yet another group of non existing leads. No one saw anything, no one of interest. He just hoped this didn’t derivate in the same way it had done in the past. Zero leads and a cold case on their hands.  
“Alright mister Celestino, thank you very much for your time. If you recall anything you would like to mention feel free to call to this number, if this one isn’t available I would see my assistant to call later and give you my personal one. Good night”  
He was just about to hang the phone when he heard his voice calling him again a little hesitant.  
“Wait. I just remembered something, it may be nothing”  
“Any thing you would deem important would be very welcome, I promise” He prompted him.  
“There was a boy, I didn’t deem it important. He was a friend of Yuuri at the time. Back then he was  the only person close him apart of another skater of mine. He always stuck up a little, a little too older to be hanging with fourteen year olds, but I never really paid that attention, he seemed nice in the way that he didn’t came as a predator you know. The point is, after what happened to Yuuri he kept on appearing everywhere. He appeared out of nowhere on the dorms, he appeared at the ice rink we trained at. It was weird alright, no one knew how he kept doing that; when you asked him what was he doing he just said he was helping Yuuri. I just thought his disappearance hit him too hard. After I left the job I just forgot about it, but now that I remember it was indeed kind of weird.”  
Now that was something interesting.  
“Do you remember anything else about this person? Age? Features? A name?”  
“It’s been too long you know, my memory it’s not what it was. He was some teenager, older hat fifteen, younger than twenty. He always stayed to watch Yuuri during his practice, I think he skated too, don’t know if he was competitive through, he just got into the ice at times, did some tricks and stuff.”  
“Can you remember a name?” He insisted again.  
“It’s hard, Yuuri never introduced him, but I think I heard him call him something sometimes.  Ilya…no…Anya…no…”  
It had been ten years, maybe he should give the man some time.  
“You don’t have to tell me now, maybe think about it and send me a call when you remember it”  
“I got it! He called him Vitya”  
Chris’s pen fell of his hand.  
“I see.” He replied monotone. “Thank you for the tip, we’ll look into it”  
He hanged before the other had chance of saying another thing.  
It could be anyone, he repeated to himself, the man is old, he could be on the wrong, and there isn’t any indication this person was actually involved.  
But even so, he had to listen to the professional part of his mind.  
He reluctantly put Viktor’s name in the list of possible suspects.

 

 

They used to creep him out. The reflections that is. Phichit used to feeel the scorching bile of terror every time he saw them before. It had been an instinctual fear, the most primal part of his mind had know from day one; no matter how much they sugarcoated their words, he knew all those words were nothing more than lies crafted to lure them into their will.  
In that sense, it had been s blessing that his own double was never one to do much talking. Opposites thing, he supposed. The small sentences they had exchanged through, were enough for him to know he didn’t want to do it ever again. He thinks the agreement is mutual. Not that they ever show themselves so much after what happened to Yuuri.  
Yuuri had always been way too much comfortable with them for his liking. Phichit had tried to warn him. But he hadn’t listened.  
After he vanished, Phichit had hoped them to disappear. They didn’t.  
One time, he read a Japanese urban legend, one of the many versions of the Hanako-san one. It said that once you catch her attention she will always be watching you  and he supposed this worked on a similar way. Once you open a door, it doesn’t close. His double, for example, seemed to follow him around, always with a sneer in his face. No words. Just the constant reminder that it was making fun of him. He had learned to ignore it.  
It had become and annoying constant. People die, taxes get higher, he had an annoying double who laughed at him but mostly kept to it’s side of the mirror.  
When Yuuri came back, things got complicated.  
Phichit was no expert alright, if he was, Yuuri wouldn’t have been dragged to the other side. But, on the course of the years, he had learned at least couple of laws when it came to the reflections.  
Rule one. Don’t listen to their sweet fake lies.  
Rule two. Don’t call for them.  
And rule three. Above everything else, never, for no reason, should you ever touch yours.  
And Yuuri was one with his. They lived of each other, used the same body, shared the same heartbeat. Phichit had to constantly check at his eyes, at his words. The thing that lived inside him could be driving him to the same destiny as him and Phichit would be none the wiser. Yuuri would be helpless to do a thing.  
If he even tried to do anything.  
Phichit was not blind alright, he loved his friend, and he wanted to trust him with all of his being. But Yuuri had been gone for ten years, sharing the last decade with those things, sharing the same air. And he could see it, Yuuri didn’t share the same allure as his counterpart, nor did he enjoyed manipulating others at his will like it did. But he had changed in the way that Phichit could see him analyzing other people, he twisted his words and choose them with a caution that wasn’t there before. Yuuri and his reflection shared a certain fire in the soul. Too close and you’ll burn.  
And things kept on evolving. Yuuri still refused to tell him much. His own reflection had been appearing a lot more frequently too. Phichit knew it was it’s way of luring him. It appeared everywhere, waiting for the moment his patience cracked and  he asked for it’s help. Yeah, sure chance.  
Phichit was not gonna fall into it’s games. He’d rather spend another ten years years looking for answers than sell himself for answers.  
Alas, he didn’t have ten years. Whatever reason there was for Yuuri’s reappearance was not going to stay hidden and if he seated waiting for it to present itself, it was going to bite him in the ass.  
He was going out for answers tonight. He didn’t really intend to find everything mind you, but a few clues to enlighten him a little bit would be very appreciated. And he knew exactly where to start.  
Somewhere once, he read the criminals always went back to the crime scene, that’s why the crime scenes where always under watch. Well, he wasn’t a criminal, not even someone of interest for the case, but for the sake of keeping it that way he decided to keep it low when entering the ice rink. There was indeed a patrol in close proximity to the doors, but taking in count that it had already been dark when he left the inn it was currently a couple hours  past midnight and the officers inside were very much asleep. Good.  
It wasn’t hard to pass inadvertent, he had already broken inside once. It was true that his past intents had been of little success and that he had mostly done stupidities, but he mostly had an idea of what to do now, and it didn’t include any salt or selfie sticks. If he was solving things, he needed to knew how bad they were.  
The rink was shadier than he remembered, but that could very well be attributed to the police tape covering the place; he trowed it aside as he walked through the place. He had to remember how to get to that one place again. In the way, he made sure not to glace at any reflecting surfaces. Just being in here was a risk he had to make.  
He found the locker rooms, ones he had only visited once after what happened to Yuuri. He remembered how they used to have little escapades in here, when Yuuri had his midnight practices and they all dragged him to the lockers with snacks and tried to get him to relax for a little while, even if they knew Celestino would scold them in the morning. Yuuri would indulge himself to snacks for once and Phichit would tell him the new stories he had read of in the internet.  
It used to be funny.  
He looked around in the room, half hoping that the people in the rink had finally got rid of the old thing. He still found it. The frame was battered and the edges had lost most of their use, but Phichit knew it was all a facade. His reflection looked proud of itself.  
“I’m not here for you” He told it diverting his gaze.  
He looked at his watch, a couple seconds till 3:00 am, just in time.  
Phichit had always wondered why was it that this things always revolved around the number three. Three hero's, three quests, three marks the clock. Alas, he didn’t make the rules, he just learned them.  
He unblocked his phone, turned the video recorder on and positioned it so it had a perfect view of his target before checking his watch again.  
Three on point.  
His eyes turned to the mirror, no one on the reflection to watch him back, nothing to look at but a reflection of the lockers. He held his hand hesitantly. Rule three, don’t touch them. If it came back he was doomed, never mind that he was one mistake ahead of breaking rules one and two. He still held his hand in front of the glass for a moment. He held his breath and knocked tree times as fast as he could. He could almost hear someone snicker.  
The image twisted and melted like liquid mercury. It was open.  
Well, things were a little more complicated now. Beyond bad. Couldn’t he have a break?! He took some towel someone had left on the floor and trowed it at the mirror in frustration. It just passed to the other side.  
“Блядь! What the fuck did you just do!?”  
He turned around to find the blond russian kid that had been snooping around in the inn. His face contorted in a shocked expression that, in other situation, would have been comical to him.  
One thing was clear, this was going to be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was that?:D Sorry for the little cliffhanger.  
> So, beta reader. As I told some, english is not my first lenguage, and someone said it is noticible at times, I just want your reading to be as enjoyable as posible, so I'm looking for a beta reader. Howevver, I warn you, I have two moods, A chapter per day ball of inspiration who goes on mad rambles, and Writer blocked without determination asking itself how do you write? And I'm unreachable at weekends. If you knew both spanish and english (or you would like to practice your spanish) that would be great, but I'll be happy either way. If you are still interested after that you may send me a message in my Tumblr, I have the same name. I'll be looking foward to any interested people :D  
> With that out of the window, thanks for Reading! feel free to leave kudos and comments :D


	7. It Ignites Once Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's not dead!?  
> Alright, I know you must want to kill me by now. But I'll explain myself at the end notes. Now, I'll give the much awaited seventh chapter, and before anything, I'd like to apologize. For a lot of things.  
> So, following past notes, in which the author does their best to get four different scenes with four different points of view of four different situations without revealing anything too crucial or being too obvious in where the plot is going. Over 4000 words of rambling and hidden meme references.

Yuri was starting to get bored, when he found Yuuri Katsuki he had hoped for things to move faster, at the very last, he had hoped him to step in the ice sooner rather than later.

Alright, it had been just four or five days, but it might as well have been a month for all he cared, he had barely even seen Yuuri. Most of the times it was just the Thai asshole or the obsessed writer. The latter proved to be irritating just by being around, all he did was go around with his head in the clouds muttering things under his breath. Plus he drank all the coffee in the house, and that was unforgivable in his books.

On the occasions he had seen Yuuri the conversation had been… awkward? Yeah, it could be described as that. He had made his intentions clear in repeated occasions, and he had also made it clear that Yuuri could not excuse himself by saying he was out of shape because he had seen him skate perfectly just a couple days before. All Yuuri did was dance around the subject, and worse, Yuri didn’t even notice he was being misled till he found himself alone, Yuuri having left the room after a while and disappearing to god knows where again.

Yuri was starting to consider abducting him himself.

So, in one of his moments of boredom, he decided to google the rest of the people in the house. Viktor was an easy one, nothing about him that he didn’t know already. Thai Asshole was a different kind of pain in the ass. Yuri knew about his skating even though it was a bit of a hushed secret in the skating circle, just some videos passed around from time to time; and he knew that he was popular in the media, some sort of internet star. He didn’t know exactly what kind of internet star.

A stupid one, apparently.

Thai Asshole not only had an instagram following larger than life, but he was also the kind of internet sensation that went around doing stupid things with nothing more than a fucking selfie stick. He’d lost count of all the videos on his blog of videos of him doing those stupid paranormal challenges. There was also a fuckload of selfies.

Later, when Yuri heard him moving around the adjacent room in the middle of the night, it was easy for him to assume that the other was going out to do something similar to what he had seen on his blog. Moved by the lack of anything better to do, he followed him.

Mistake number two.

If he had known that it was going to take so long to get wherever, he would have stayed behind. It was almost three am when he realized where the other was going. The rink Katsuki had disappeared at.

He even made a show of going inside by rolling on the floor to elude the patrol stationed in front. It wasn’t like they were even awake.

Once inside, he half expected him to do the same thing everyone had done before while sneaking inside, steal some skates and call for the spirits of whatever while standing in the middle of the ice like an idiot. Even so, he still followed him all the way to the locker rooms, asking himself in the meanwhile what of interest could be in them.

Mistake number three.

He snickered when he saw Thai Asshole knock on the mirror. It was probably some sort of creepypasta reenactment, those internet horror stories that didn’t scare anyone.

When the goddamn towel actually passed through the mirror, he’ll admit it, he was fucking scared. Yuri cussed in Russian. Suddenly remaining unnoticed had been thrown out of the window.

Thai Asshole -- Phichit, whatever -- turned to look at him like deer on the headlights. Yeah, he better was shocked.

“What the fuck was that!?” He exclaimed.

“It’s a trick!” Phichit said all too quickly. “Just smoke and mirrors! Nothing to see here!”

Yeah, as if he would believe that. If that was a trick, he was a fucking hockey player.

“Prove it” He growled.

“What?” The other asked seemingly confused.

“If that was trick then prove it, but I’m not buying it”

Yuri started getting closer to the mirror and the closer he got, the more he noticed the mercury sheen in it, the supernatural gleam in it. For a moment he hoped that what the other said was the truth, another part of him telling him to back away, better run, there were things that better remained in the dark. He felt a little scared, not that he would ever tell anyone. Yuri’s natural curiosity was sweeping through him and telling him to make sure it was real because this was ridiculous, right? This had to be some sort of prank, a dream or something.  _ I have to touch _ , he thought, extending his arm,  _ and make sure it’s real _ .

He felt himself being pushed back.

“Hey, Asshole! What the heck?! Where did that come from!?” He shouted at him while staring at  the spot he’d touched.

The other fixed him with a cold glare.

“You should never touch it for any reason.”

“What? Why?”

Phichit looked troubled, his eyes snapping from the mirror to him, as if trying to convey a proper answer.

“Alright, I’ll tell you the truth, or part of it at least. But you have to promise you’re gonna listen to me, and no one, other than you and I, can know about this”

Not that he had many options, he could try to look into it by himself but he had never been one to go snooping for answers.

“Deal” He grumbled.

“Alright, first of all, don’t touch that. I don’t know how bad this is, but if you ever see a mirror like this, get as far as you can. Keep an eye on your reflection, if it ever starts doing something you don’t, if it ever appears somewhere it shouldn’t, if you hear you name while turning your back, stay away from the mirror, don’t touch it. Don’t speak to it, don’t call it back”

This was bullshit.

“What are you even talking about!? What happens if I do!?”

“Remember Yuuri?”

“Yeah, what does he have to do with all this”

Phichit gave him a significant gaze.

It took him exactly three seconds to get it.

“Oh”

Leaving the inn was mistake number one.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What are we doing in here?” asked Yuuri

If Viktor was being honest, Yuuri held a certain kind of allure over him: a form of attraction akin to the one of mermaids luring the sailors to death. He didn’t knew what that meant, where did all that attraction came from, but as he drowned himself into his investigation he tried his best to ignore it.

Yuuri was an amazing specimen. Viktor had always known him as such, something to be admired from afar, to look and not to touch.

It was no surprise to anyone that getting to speak with Yuuri had always been a dream of his, it was even in his book. He often thought about standing in front him, asking and getting to hear those questions being solved, detangled by the only one who knew their answers.

From that point of view, maybe those same thoughts were the reason he was here now.

Here being Kirseberg Ice Rink, the last and first place he had been seen. Yuuri seemed a little uncomfortable standing on the ice, Viktor admitted to himself that maybe a small coffee shop would have been a better place to do this, the cold creeped inside him all too quickly.

“This is an important place” he told him.

Yuuri still kept looking at him unsurely.

In his defense he thought it would be fine. After all, up to this point Yuuri had shown no proof of being that affected, but he should have known this place in particular was going to bring back bad memories.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” Viktor said.

That seemed to elicit a laugh from him.

“Yeah, you said that earlier.”

Good, maybe they could start erasing the uncomfortable aura that had been looming around them to this point.

“You do remember this place, do you?”

Yuuri turned to look at him like he was stupid.

Right, maybe something with more sense.

“Do you remember the night you disappeared?”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, nodding afterward and starting to do some circles round him.

“I do,” he answered.

“Can you tell me what happened?

He hummed, eyes distant as he continued to skate.

“Do you really want to know?”

What kind of question was that? Of course that Viktor wanted to know, that’s what he came here for after all.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t” He replied instead.

Yuuri seemed to consider that for a moment.

“What do you think happened?” He asked.

“I’ve got some theories, but I wouldn’t ask if I knew for sure.”

“Then tell me your theories”

At some point Yuuri had started doing figure eights around the rink, Viktor decided to follow him, his own ice skates gliding a little bit more erratically. It had been a long while since the last time he had been on the ice.

He searched his head for the best one to start with.

“Well, for one, there is the one in which someone used some sort of trap door under the ice to snatch you as quick as possible”

That drew another laugh from him. He kinda liked the sound of it, a warm feeling spreading along his chest as he heard it.

“And tell me, did you find the door?” He replied, a teasing edge to his voice.

“None of it proved true as I told you, some also think you were abducted by aliens but that’s even less likely” He tried to joke.

“And what do you think? Do you believe anything in special?”

Viktor didn’t fail to notice how Yuuri started to skate closer.

“I’m at loss” He shook his head with a sad smile in his lips. “Like I said, I have lots of possibilities, but proving them has been fruitless till now.

Yuuri’s frame seemed to fall at that, and Viktor could understand. He had done that same thing in counted occasions when his speculations turned wrong.

“But, you’re here now. You can tell me what happened” He tried to plead, not trying to hide the hope in his voice at all.

Yuuri shook his head, stopping his glide and turning to look at him with the most serious expression he had seen him sport till now.

“No” He sighed. “I’m sorry, but no”

He was the one crestfallen now.

“Why?” Was the only thing he could mutter.

He didn’t understand.

“Viktor, why do you want to know all of this?” Yuuri questioned, stepping closer with a wary look on his face, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask, like he feared the answer.

“What do you mean why? The people need to know if there’s a reason. Whoever did this to you needs to pay for his acts” He rambled, thoughts still swarming around in his head.

“Yeah,” Yuuri acknowledged,“but why do you need to know?” What moves you? Why are you so fixed on this?”

Why was he? Viktor didn’t know. What moved others to invest themselves in something? To dedicate their lives to it. What drove him to this point? What made this so important to him?

Yuuri looked at him expectantly, his eyes pleading for the answer.

“I…I don’t know” He answered. “I can’t answer you, it’s just who I’m, I’ve never considered anything else”

Yuuri looked like he had just been slapped in the face.

“You can’t even answer that. Then how am I supposed to answer you,” He pled.

Viktor was panicking internally, what had he done? It was obvious he had done something to hurt Yuuri in some way, but he just didn’t know what he had done exactly.

“Why does it matter?” He tried to reason. “Just tell me, we can figure out why later”

Yuuri shook his head, a hesitant hand making it’s way to his cheek. A broken expression in his face as he got closer.

“You don’t even know who you are.” He muttered getting even more closer “Do you even know who I am?”

Viktor let out a breath he had been holding, a part of his brain managing to notice how it mixed with Yuuri’s own. So close.

“You are Yuuri Katsuki” He supplied.

He could see the hurt in his eyes as he said that.

“Yes Viktor, but what else?”

He was tempted to lean his head, just a little closer to the warm breath.

“You don’t even know who I am,” he whimpered and Viktor could feel the words against his lips.

He was just about to close the distance when he felt the warmth getting farther.

“I’m sorry” He muttered with his eyes down.

Viktor had to compose himself for a moment before finding his words again.

“No…I, Yuuri what do you mean? I don’t under--”

“Viktor,” Yuuri interrupted, his eyes glowing like fire.

“Look at me, Viktor,” he commanded. “Why are you so blind?” He asked, the exasperation building up in his voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yuuri” Viktor defended himself, a little taken aback by Yuuri’s sudden change in attitude.

“You keep trying to solve me, yet you can’t even solve yourself,” he said disappointed. “We’re done here. I’ll go back to the inn later, you can go now”

“But we still haven’t…”

“I said, now”

Viktor decided to stop pushing the subject; maybe he had said something wrong. He just hoped Yuuri didn’t hate him now.

He was just leaving the rink when a blond kid started shrieking at him.

“You’re Viktor Nikiforov!” He wailed. “The author of Yuuri On Ice”

Oh, so it was one of his fans, he seemed nice, if a bit over enthusiastic, he did his best to smile at him.

“The same one!” He chimed “Did you like the book?”

“I loved it sir!” He exclaimed, rummaging through his backpack till he found what he was looking for. “Would you sign my book if it isn’t much trouble?”

“Of course!” He told taking the book and a pen of his own “To whom?”

“Minami Kenjiro!” The smaller one squealed

“There it is: from Viktor Nikiforov, to Minami Kenjiro” He said giving him the book back.

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome” He smiled at him again and proceeded to go on his way again.

“Uhm…sir” He heard the other calling again. “Can we take a photo for my instagram”

“Sure!” he told him.

He was finally free again after taking the picture. Now that he thought about it, Yuuri probably didn’t know anything about instagram, so maybe he could teach him about that later as a way to say sorry. Yeah, that was a good idea.

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri’s words had certainly changed JJ’s perspective.

He was no Viktor Nikiforov, and he was not going to fool himself into thinking he was, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him either.

Life hadn’smiled at him in the last decade, and while most of it had been due to things far out of his control, he had long since recognized that he had never done something to stop it. He didn’t blame himself, and he also knew that even if he had acted against it that would not have made it get better for sure, but it always resumed to one thing in the end. Life broke him, and all he ever did was let it happen.  He stayed in a perpetual state of passiveness, always hoping for a change, but staying still when others attacked him; never blaming anyone, but desiring to deep inside himself.

And the truth is, he’d probably blamed Yuuri in the past, a little part of him just hoping that he had actually hurt him just so he had something to be punished for all this years. But it wasn’t Yuuri’s fault, it was never Yuuri’s fault. If someone was to blame, it would be the one who started all this. 

JJ was probably being a little dramatic, he had always been like that, but it served as a drive, and if it kept him going forward it would serve for now.

The first step of his plan however focused a little more on doing things right. He had left his girlfriend with almost no explanation and if his new goal was making things right, then he had to start by managing his life a little better. He had to give some explanation to her. At this point she probably had a full detailed plan on how to kill him and dump the body somewhere no one would ever found it. He wouldn’t blame her.

He thought about texting or calling but that would probably make things worse. If there is something worse than a fiance who leaves without explanations, it is probably a fiance who leaves without explanations and then decides to give them in a impersonal way.

He ended up deciding on facetiming her and making it up to her by sending an apology gift. It would probably leave him with even less money but it would still be worth it.

He was on his way to city now. JJ could have looked for the gift and sent it via post office in Hasetsu, but with all the reporters and enthusiasts for the case that plagued the town he didn’t want to risk it. He’d managed to keep a low profile; they had yet to know he was there and he wanted to keep it that way. Knowing them they would probably start some weird conspiracy theory in which he is keeping an eye on Yuuri to abduct him again or something.

So JJ threw on a thick sweater with a hood to hide his face and decided to walk all the way to the outskirts of town on a mostly unused road and taking a bus from there. That would reduce the risk of meeting anyone who might  recognize him.

The blizzard was still going strong, everything was covered in snow and his feet seemed to be soaking. The cold seeped through his clothes in no time. He tried walking faster to catch the bus; if he stayed in the open he was going to die from hypothermia. Meanwhile, he settled for looking around for somewhere to get warm.

If he had not been doing that, he may have never seen the car. It was almost imperceptible under all that snow and trees, but JJ recognized the form, it was in a bad shape, he noticed, whoever was driving was probably lucky if they didn’t break a few bones. A dreadful thought passed through his head, what if they died? What if there is some corpse inside there, frozen by the cold, with a family waiting that wonders about their well being, and they would remain undiscovered till the snow melts on someone finds their body. It was probably rubbish, but there was a possibility, even if it was just a small one. A little look inside would not hurt.

The door was already open, so he guessed whoever had been inside escaped. There was a little blood in the handle through, or at least he thinks it is blood, it was all brown and crusted. They probably left on a hurry looking for help. In the backside remained a handful of thing that were left forgotten, a couple of papers covered in snow, something that looked like a squeaking toy. No frozen body through.

He was just walking away when another thought passed his head. The trunk had been thrown open in the crash, and it was probably because he had been accused of abducting and killing someone, but some part within him conveyed the possibility of a body in the trunk. A criminal who abducted someone and suffered a car crash, leaving he body and evidence behind. He just needed to open the trunk to find out, right?

He approached the open lid and flipped it open after a moment of hesitation. There was no body, but what he found made him frown.

A skating costume and a small pair of skates. He could recognize that costume anywhere. It could be fake, some people liked to dress up; but the detail was just as he remembered, the fabric worn out by time. And the skates were fitted, custom made for a specific professional skater, the blades dull.

The same thing Yuuri had worn when he disappeared.

His luck must be changing, he was one step ahead of Viktor Nikiforov.

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Chris had just arrived at work when he got the call.

He couldn’t sleep last night, that, contrary to the usual, was not caused by any good reason.

Life and work did not mingle, that was a universal rule, especially if your work involved the law. You could never let personal judgment in the way of professionalism, and he had always thought that those kind of things happened only to the amateurs, people who had not seen enough or were not dedicated enough to draw the line. To all whom he judged that way, he would like to extend an apology, he could see the fault in his ways now. Pointing Viktor as a possible suspect was the right thing to do as a detective, someone with an objective judgment. As a friend, it was eating him alive, his judgment clouded.

It had to be one of the hardest decisions he had taken to this point, even if he knew it could lead to nothing in the end, cause it was recognizing the possibility of it being truth. That he, who had known Viktor for a while, who considered him his best friend, even fathomed the idea of him harboring such a dark secret, and that he had done it from the start, it made him sick of the stomach.

When he entered the station, it had been obvious by anyone around that it was not a good idea to anger him. He looked like death, dark circles under his eyes, hair looking like a bird nest, an extra large cup of coffee in his hand and the worse, he didn’t even had mascara. His eyelashes had never looked that bad.

It was to be expected when he almost growled at the poor secretary who intercepted him.

“Uhm, I think you should attend this call, detective” muttered the boy with hesitance.

That made him frown, he did not attend calls, that was the boy’s work, the only time he called people was when an investigation called for it, and he was usually the one calling.

“You know I don’t attend those, write down the information and if a case is required someone will be assigned to it” He told him doing his best try not to bark the words.

“Sir, believe me, you want to attend this one”

He sighed, it would be best just to get this over, if it was nothing he would just remember the kid the proper way of protocol.

“Hello, this is detective Giacometti, how can I help you?

He heard a woman’s voice on the other side, her voice hoarse indicative that she had been crying.

“It’s my son, he didn’t come home last night, he hasn’t come back this morning either”

He still didn’t get why he had been directed this call, this kind of cases usually passed through other hands before getting to him.

The lady on the line kept on weeping.

“Calm down miss, I’m sure your son is fine, have you checked with any friends? Maybe he got late and decided to stay with them”

“No! You don’t understand, oh god this is just like that boy on the tv, it’s happening all over again!”

“Can you explain? What is happening all over again?”

“The vanishing! My son is a skater and he went out to train in that rink the Katsuki boy vanished in! He never came back! Just like ten years ago”

Well, that sure escalated quickly.

He had been waiting for a case that would entertain him, it fired back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uhm, do you still not want to kill me?  
> Alright, so story time. As you might have noticed, I was looking for a beta. And I got one! She was great! Like, this chapter would not be this amaizing without her. But I think she didn't have enough time, and really, I don't blame her. But when she dissapeared altogether, well, it was sad, for me, I struggle with depression guys, and I was under a lot of stress at the time, and those little things where he ones that pushed me back to that zone. I don't say it excuses me, but you deserve to know what happened.  
> Still, I got help. I've been searching for it, decided to stop being a hermit. I'm much better now and still really exited about this story. So here you have it, I'm back, and here to stay. I also think I got a new beta, maybe, there is a chance, but wether or not that works you'll still find me here.  
> That being said, did you like the chapter? I answer questions and love to talk about my story in my Tumblr by the same name <3

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, how was it? feel free to tell me your opinión :) Also english is not my first lenguage so feel free to also point out any mistake.  
> 


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